Shape My Edges and Broker My Assent
by LilinasWrites
Summary: Kidnapped and sold as a slave to the powerful Duke of Eastreach, Kurt Hummel plays the part in order to preserve his sanity and sense of self. But when the duke's steward arrives on the scene, the frightening, alluring Sebastian threatens to destroy the fragile safety zone between who Kurt is and what he pretends to be.
1. Chapter One

**A word about warnings for this story:**

I struggled a lot with how to warn for this fic. If I tag for absolutely everything that happens or is referenced in the story, not only would I be spoiling at least some of what happens, it would make the story sound much, much more intense and angsty than it really is. But at the same time I always want to make sure that people who have triggers get full warnings. So I came up with a plan.

You should be able to tell from the title of this story that consent - what it is, who can give it, and in what situations - is a major theme. There will be non-con, dub-con, and various stages of questionable in Kurt's interactions with both OCs and Sebastian. And I do like my shades of gray, so I won't be making judgments about some of those questionable areas. That's the whole point. If you have issues with dubious consent, this is probably not the fic for you.

Also, this is a slave fic. Kurt, at the outset, is the slave of an OC and he's not happy about it. Bad things happen to him. He has strong emotional reactions to those things. But if you know my writing, you know that I don't like to belabor angst or linger on unpleasant things beyond what narrative demands. This is not a story about Kurt being hurt. But it is a story about Kurt struggling to survive in a bad situation.

So if you know me and trust me and don't have specific triggers that you're worried about, I'd say go ahead and start reading.

If you do have specific concerns or triggers, I've put a page listing of all the things this story could be tagged with at lilinas dot tumblr dot com slash assentwarnings. And you can always feel free to message me here or on tumblr or LiveJournal about any concerns you may have. I'm lilinas everywhere.

I've probably completely over-thought this, but better safe than sorry, right?

On to the story!

* * *

><p>"Oh Gavin, he's beautiful!"<p>

By any reasonable standard, Lady Miranda of Montrose should have been completely miserable.

First, of course, was location. Any trip to the eastern half of the Unified Realm of Concordia (and eternal blessings on King Harold III for saddling his kingdom with that particular acronym) was guaranteed to put her in the foulest of moods. There were those among the back-stabbing social climbers at court who might have hinted that her distaste was hypocritical, given the fact that she herself was a product of the eastern realm. But no one would have dared to say it to her face. Thanks to the custom of east marrying west, and vice versa, Miranda had happily left her homeland behind on her wedding day, determined to never return. Unfortunately, that same custom had eventually dictated that her own daughter marry east, and not even the honor of having a count for a son-in-law could compensate for the fact that the occasional visit was unavoidable. Lord Montrose had long ago learned to treat his wife very gently from the moment they crossed the eastern bank of the Whitemarsh River until they were at last safely returned to their manor in the heart of Concordia City.

Then there was the company. On any trip east, propriety dictated a stop to pay respects to the Duke and Duchess of Eastreach. They were the ranking nobles in the east and normally Miranda would have been thrilled to be welcomed by people of such station, who would be anxious for their news of the court and certain to invite them to spend the night in the ducal castle. But she'd learned on previous visits, and during the duke and duchess' infrequent trips to court, that Ardith was insipid in the extreme and Gavin was only interested in finding his way under the skirts of as many women as possible. Miranda had had to fend of his advances more than once – tactfully, of course; he was the queen's brother after all. But his behavior only served to confirm her opinion that even among the nobility, there was nothing of value to be found in the eastern realm.

Even her place at table for the midday meal seemed designed to irk her. Instead of a formal arrangement (and really, didn't Lord and Lady Montrose merit a formal arrangement?) with all the guests of distinction facing the commoners at the lower tables, their chairs had been set casually around the high table. So Miranda's place of honor at the duke's right hand also put her with her back to the assembled masses and what was the point of being at the high table if the commoners weren't able to see and admire her? She should have been seething. She _had_ been seething, in fact, enough that her husband had spent most of the meal casting concerned glances in her direction from his place across the table at the duchess' right hand.

But that was before the duke had decided, during the dessert course, to show off his most precious possession.

Conversation at the lower tables had dropped to whispered murmurs the moment the boy had appeared from a hidden alcove to stand behind the duke's chair. The duchess, at the foot of the table, blushed red at his entrance and muttered a token protest in the general direction of her dessert plate. Lord Montrose, who had never, to Miranda's knowledge, pointed his dick in a male direction, stared openly. But the duke kept his avid gaze on Miranda, anticipating her reaction.

Miranda only had eyes for the boy.

"Beautiful" was the word she'd used, but it wasn't right, wasn't enough, somehow, to describe him. Standing naked, not a single adornment from top to toe, hands clasped behind him and head lowered in submissive deference, he was beyond beauty, really. He was a vision, something an artist might conceive in a brilliant fever dream and then coax gently from a block of marble using every ounce of his talent and hard-earned skill. A masterwork. His pale skin seemed to glow in the light slanting through the hall's high windows, so fair that the chestnut of his hair and the rosy pink of his nipples stood out against it in almost shocking contrast.

"Boy" was also the wrong word. It was only the lack of hair below his neck that gave that impression. He was a youthful but fully formed man. His shoulders were broad and strong. His skin was shadowed in all the right places with the outlines of lithe muscle and his cock, hanging flaccid against his full, heavy balls, was not by any estimation immature.

But more than his physical beauty, it was his composure that took Miranda's breath away. He stood perfectly calm, betraying no sign that he was at all discomfited standing completely exposed in front of the duke's entire household. No muscle trembled; no breath hitched. No matter where Miranda looked, she saw no flaw in his careful composure. His self-control must be remarkable. There had to be cracks, she thought. Everyone had weaknesses. Miranda had a passion for finding and exploiting the weaknesses of others. She wanted to touch this boy so badly that her fingers ached with it.

The duke snapped his fingers with a sudden sharp sound that echoed in the silent hall and the boy, as if waiting for that very signal, stepped forward and folded himself to the floor with perfect grace to kneel beside his master's chair. Conversation at the lower tables buzzed louder again; apparently a naked slave in the hall was only interesting if something was going to be done with him.

Miranda however, with her close-up view, was only more fascinated by the way the boy held himself, back straight, knees spread so that his balls swung down between his legs. Long-fingered hands rested soft and open on his thighs.

"I've never seen anything like him," she breathed. She hoped Gavin could appreciate how rarely she had occasion to make that assertion.

Gavin's thick lips pulled into a leering smile. "I should think not. He's one of a kind."

"Gavin, must we? At the table?" The duchess' protest was murmured so quietly that Miranda could barely hear it. The duke ignored it altogether.

"I thought slavery was outlawed a hundred years ago," Lord Montrose said. "When Harold III unified the realms."

"Acts of aggression rarely succeed in the way the aggressors intend them to," the Duke intoned, and Miranda had to pinch her lips together to stop herself smiling. A hundred years of unification and intermarriage and still the east wasn't over it. "I think you'll find the west is very rarely aware of what actually happens in the east," Gavin continued. "In point of fact, my own grandfather always kept a slut. I can remember the last one. And if that's a hundred years then the Maker's been much kinder to me than I'm sure I deserve." He laughed at that, pleased with his own joke, and Lord Montrose, with his usual skill at flattery, laughed merrily along with him.

Miranda was still transfixed by the boy. "But wherever did he come from?" she asked. The duke's hubris aside, it was a fact that there was no pool of slaves left in the east, or anywhere else, to provide likely candidates. "I don't imagine he volunteered."

The duke shrugged. "Some village in the mountains couldn't pay their taxes last summer. When my collector came calling, they offered him instead. Obviously barbarians." He snorted derisively, apparently seeing no irony in expressing that particular sentiment with the boy himself kneeling beside him. "But I'd been thinking about reviving the slut tradition so I accepted. You might say he just tumbled right into my lap." Another suggestive laugh, echoed sycophantically by Lord Montrose. "I even managed to find someone to train him. Cost me quite a bit of coin to have him properly put right. But worth every penny."

"Didn't he have any family? Anyone to defend him?"

Gavin shrugged again. "The man who offered him said he was an orphan. In any case, no one's ever come looking for him."

The boy knelt there, perfectly still, and carefully as Miranda looked, she could see absolutely no reaction to the story of his own loss of freedom being recounted over his head. He gave no indication that he'd heard a single word of it. The strength of his will made him even more alluring. Oh, how she longed to have him alone. The more perfect the façade, the more satisfying it was to shatter.

"So he was free, before?" Miranda asked, more to goad the boy than because she needed clarification. "He was kidnapped against his will?"

"My dear Miranda, what slave ever chooses to serve? Besides, once a slut is trained he has no will of his own. That's the entire point. His only thought is to please his master." Gavin dropped a heavy hand to the boy's head, tangling his fingers in the short hair there and pulling back roughly, forcing the boy to look up at him. "Isn't that right, slut?"

"Yes, master."

The boy's voice surprised Miranda, soft and high as girl's. His face still betrayed no emotion at all. As soon as the duke released him he lowered his eyes to the floor again in careful submission. Miranda was torn between the desire to laugh out loud and to rage. Gavin obviously believed what he was saying. And if he really was that oblivious, he didn't begin to deserve so exquisite a slave.

"Why a boy, though?" Lord Montrose asked, unexpectedly, from across the table. "Wouldn't you prefer a girl?"

"Sluts are always boys," the duke responded, patronizingly, as if he were telling a child something he should have been able to figure out on his own.

Miranda gave her husband a warning glance, but Ignatius went on, oblivious. "Always? I don't understand. I thought everyone in the east was horrified by the idea of –"

"You'll have to excuse Ignatius," Miranda interrupted, her warning escalating into a fierce _shut the fuck up_ glare. The last thing they needed was for Ignatius to insult the entirety of Gavin's ancestors by implying they were all sexual deviants. "He's born and bred western so of course he doesn't understand the fundamental difference between a slut and a lover."

She forced out a laugh, as if mocking her husband's idiocy, and Gavin echoed it. "I don't fuck my slut, Lord Montrose."

"Gavin!" the duchess managed, but again the duke ignored her.

"But obviously you –"

"When you close your eyes, one mouth is as good as another."

"I just meant, why not girls? It seems to make so much more sense."

"I've always heard," Miranda said, throwing another death glare at her husband before leaning closer to Gavin in an effort to appease or at least distract him with her cleavage, "that men are often better at pleasing other men. Because they intimately know how it all feels. We women lack the . . . equipment . . . for that kind of personal knowledge."

Both men laughed at that, and the duchess blushed again and applied herself to her pastry with a fork that trembled visibly.

"Actually, Lord Montrose," Gavin said, "it's a simple matter of boys being easier to control than girls."

"I find that hard to believe!" Ignatius scoffed.

"Really?" Miranda raised an eyebrow at her husband. "Where in the world would you get the impression that women are easy to control?"

"We're speaking of peasants, not noblewomen. The man has yet to be born who could master you, my dear." He saluted her with his goblet and took a sip, then turned his attention back to the duke.

"Noblewomen aside, I assure you it's quite true," Gavin said. "Stand up, slut."

Silently, gracefully, the boy unfolded himself and rose to his feet, which had the happy result of putting his cock back at Miranda's eye level. Especially happy as Gavin, without taking his eyes off Lord Montrose, grabbed his slut's penis in a tight grip and began to stroke, pulling the foreskin roughly along the flaccid shaft. As if on cue, the entire hall went quiet again behind Miranda as everyone's attention was drawn back to the dais.

"Gavin, please –" the duchess tried again.

"You're free to leave the table if you'd like, Ardith," the duke told his wife coldly, not bothering to even glance in her direction.

The duchess remained in her place.

"It's perfectly sanitary," Gavin told Ignatius as he stroked the boy. "Keeping himself scrupulously clean is his second most important duty."

Cleanliness was the very last thing on Miranda's mind at the moment. She had the best view in the house and sat transfixed as, almost from the first stroke, the boy's cock began to stretch and fill. It had reached full hardness by the fifth, and without the downward pressure of Gavin's hand it would have stood, she could tell, flush against his belly. Miranda, who almost certainly had more experience with a greater variety of cocks than anyone else at the table, could see right away that the duke kept his slut very needy indeed. And yet even as the physical manifestation of his arousal grew, the boy's control was absolute. His eyes stayed down, his breathing even, if not for the evidence directly in front of Miranda's eyes, it would have been impossible to tell that he was in any way excited. How she longed to have a chance to break through that perfect shell. Just the idea of it made her wet.

"You see, Lord Montrose?" Gavin said, still stroking. "Men are ruled by their cocks. Yes, even you and I, although of course as men of breeding and education we can rise above our natural urges."

Miranda almost choked at that, and had to turn away and hide her face in her goblet. Only in the east could a man seriously assert his ability to control his sexual urges while masturbating the naked slave he kept to suck his cock.

"But these lowborn boys?" Gavin continued. "Keep them desperate enough and all they can think about is being allowed to erupt. Eventually they'll do anything at all to earn a chance to come. Control their pleasure and you control everything else. With one hand." He stopped his rough stroking and squeezed down hard on the boy's cock. Miranda watched, fascinated, as a drop of moisture appeared in the slit, beaded there for a moment, then fell, dropping in a shining spider-silk thread toward the floor.

"I'm close, master," the boy murmured suddenly, and the duke, without even a glance at him, release his shaft and went right back to his pastry.

Miranda wanted to laugh with delight. Gavin had no idea at all. It was obvious the boy wasn't anywhere near a loss of control. His cock was still hard, of course, but it didn't jump or throb; it had only produced the one tiny bit of slick, and his full balls still hung loose between his legs. Apparently the duke was too busy rising above his natural urges to realize his sex slave was pulling the wool over his eyes.

"I'm still in favor of Miranda's explanation," Ignatius said. "A cock knows what a cock likes."

"I'm sure it's more practical than either of those things." The voice from the foot of the table was so unexpected that everyone, even the duke, simply stared at the duchess, waiting for her to say more. Still looking flushed, she raised her pinched eyes from her dessert and looked directly at Ignatius. "A girl could only be kept naked three weeks out of every month, of course. There's more value in a boy."

Miranda wasn't sure what was funnier, the unexpected logic of the duchess' argument or the looks on the faces of the men when she made it. A bark of laughter escaped her before she could press her hand to her mouth to stifle it.

Ardith spoke again, still focusing on Ignatius, casually, as if she hadn't just shocked the entire table. "How did you leave the king and queen, Lord Montrose? Are they recovering from the death of the crown prince?"

Ignatius was still taken aback by the lady's outburst. "Well they . . ." he stammered, "I mean, does anyone ever recover from a loss like that?"

"Such a tragedy. We were deeply sorry not to have been able to attend the funeral. But we'll be coming to Concordia City in the spring, for young Prince Harold's affirmation in his brother's place, of course. Do you think . . ."

Miranda didn't bother to listen to the rest of the question. She turned her attention back to Gavin, his slut, and the slut's still-hard cock. Gavin was staring at Miranda as fiercely as Miranda was sure she was staring at the slut.

"Would you like to touch him?" he offered.

Would she? "Are you sure?" Miranda asked. It wouldn't do to appear too eager, after all. "Such a valuable thing . . ."

"I insist."

She wasn't going to wait to be told twice. Excitement fluttered in her chest and warmed between her legs. The boy betrayed no reaction to the idea of being handled by a stranger; Miranda would have been disappointed if he had. She rose and stepped so close to the boy that his cock bobbed inches from the ice blue silk panels of her skirt. She could feel Gavin's eyes on her, almost burning in their intensity, but she didn't care. Everything faded into the background, the rise and fall of chatter from the lower tables, the quiet conversation the duchess insisted on keeping up with Ignatius.

She touched a fingertip under the boy's chin and pushed up, so that he was forced to raise his head and meet her gaze. His eyes were a lovely, stormy gray-ish blue, pretty, but empty. Blank. She could imagine them, though, pleading, glistening with tears. They would be so beautiful. He would be so beautiful, if he ever broke. Intolerably beautiful.

She released his chin and the stormy gaze lowered immediately back to the floor. Miranda trailed her hand down, caressing the soft skin of his throat, over the planes of his chest to pinch at one pink nipple. She watched his face as she worked at it, but aside from the nipple itself peaking in pebbled arousal, the boy might as well have been a statue. But she knew the way in. There was one thing Gavin was right about, even in his imbecilic blindness. She slipped her hand lower, tracing over his hip bone before sliding between his legs to cup his balls. They were heavy, even heavier than she'd expected from their swollen appearance, so hard and full in her hand that she knew they had to ache. Pleasure pulsed between her legs again as she realized just how denied the slut must be.

"Gods, Gavin, do you ever let him come?"

"Occasionally. The teasing is the key. It's what keeps them obedient. But in order for it to work the slut at least has to think he has a chance. So I can't avoid the occasional release. Followed by plenty of pain, of course. Just to keep him in line."

"Of course," Miranda breathed. She tightened her hand, squeezing his balls hard enough to hurt, but the boy made no sound and his shadowed eyes showed no sign of strain. Then, deciding she'd teased them both enough, she finally let herself touch his cock. She slipped her fingers along the length of his shaft, stroking, not harsh as Gavin had been, but gently, tenderly, easing the foreskin over the exposed head and back again. The boy's flesh, at least, wasn't immune to her effect. She felt it thicken against her hand and again moisture oozed from the slit. Gorgeous. "He must be so much fun to play with when he's like this," she said.

"I wouldn't know," Gavin said with a sniff, as if Miranda's words offended him. "I almost never touch him. Why would I?"

"Then how –"

"My valet does most of the handling. He has quite the flair for cock teasing. I can't decide if he's a deviant or just a dedicated sadist. Either way, I should probably replace him. The priests would demand it if they knew, but then who'd torture my slut for me? Plus he's terribly talented with a needle and thread."

A tiny flutter, barely enough to be called a twitch, rippled at the corner of the boy's mouth. If Miranda hadn't been watching so closely she would have missed it entirely, but her breath caught and her heart jumped in her chest. Finally a crack in his perfect control.

"What in the world does he do with the needle and thread?" she pressed, eyes glued to the boy's face.

"Keeps my wardrobe, of course. What else would he do with them?"

Disappointing, but Miranda was undeterred. She began to stroke harder, faster, pumping her hand up and down the hard shaft. She didn't have to know exactly what had caused the boy's slip to take advantage of it. She swept her thumb over the head of the boy's penis, sliding through the slick, over and over until finally the boy murmured to Gavin, just as he'd done before, "I'm close, master."

Oh, he was perfection. Miranda wanted to shout her triumph. She had dragged enough cocks to eruption to know that the boy was still far from any danger of coming. She'd gotten further than Gavin – she could feel little pulses of desire running the length of the shaft – but Gavin's assertion that the boy had no will of his own was becoming more and more ludicrous. She tightened her fist around him and squeezed as hard as she could, until the slick began to trickle over the head in tiny rivulets. Then with her other hand she grabbed his chin, harder than before, and forced him to raise his eyes again.

This time when he met her gaze the blank emptiness was gone. She could see him thinking, assessing, and it was glorious. Everything she'd ever imagined. The duke, the hall, the entire world faded into nothing as his lovely eyes bored into hers. Miranda's sexual tastes had always tended toward domination, and though she'd never lacked for bed partners willing to play that way, this, this was so very different. This was real. There were no scripts or safewords here. This perfect boy was completely hers, to do with as she wished. She held his fate quite literally in her hands.

_I know your secret_, she told him with her eyes, and a thrill sparked through her body when his cloudy blue gaze darkened with the first flicker of fear.

She loosened her grip, both on his cock and his face, and resumed stroking in long, slow slides, while the boy returned his gaze to the floor, trying to hide from her again. But it was no good. She'd seen through him. She'd scented his fear and now the chase was on. There could only be one winner and Miranda was determined that it would be her. She slid her thumb around the crown, again and again through the accumulating moisture there, until his breath caught in his throat and he looked up at her of his own volition. "Please," he begged, taking the tiniest pause before adding, for Gavin's sake, "master," and dropping his eyes again to the floor.

"I don't want to spoil your fun, Miranda, but don't make my slut come. I have meetings scheduled all afternoon. I really don't have time to punish him."

The boy began to tremble. His chest heaved and he raised his eyes again, silently pleading.

Miranda resumed her stroking, ignoring Gavin entirely. The duke was an idiot who didn't deserve to occupy the same space as the exquisite creature in front of her. From just two feet away he was oblivious to the fact that she had more control of the boy after five minutes than he'd managed to exert in half a year. The boy continued to look her in the eyes, still begging, and she smiled at him, warmly, gently, a silent _good boy_ as a reward for finally recognizing her mastery. Miranda had enough experience with bending others to her will to know that although there were many ways to force someone to do what you wanted them to do, the only way to truly control them was to know what they feared. And this boy feared punishment. Her contempt for the duke was growing by the moment. He had the means to break the boy, but his _meetings_ were more important.

"Look at how he shakes," she said, turning her seductive smile on Gavin. "Your punishments must be fierce indeed."

The duchess and Ignatius had stopped talking, watching Miranda with the slut instead, and only the occasional whisper from the lower hall disturbed the overall silence.

"You have no idea what a challenge it is to come up with things that don't mark up that precious skin everyone keeps telling me is so valuable," Gavin said. "In his training they just beat him. But I have to be more creative."

"Tell me," she coaxed, slowing her strokes to keep the boy right where she wanted him.

"There was one that involved my best hunting dog, a cauldron of meat broth, and the slut's cock. I think that one was especially inspired. You should have heard him scream."

Miranda intended to do just that. She turned on the duke with the exaggerated pout that almost always succeeded in getting her what she wanted. From men, at least. "Oh, you can't tease me that way!" she protested, letting her voice slip into a more girlish pitch. "There must be time for just a tiny demonstration. I don't even have to make him come. After all, he's your slut. You don't need an excuse to punish him." She let go of the boy's cock then, and settled back down in her seat so she could lean closer to the duke, creating a sense of intimate space between them. "It's his job to entertain you."

As soon as her hand left his body, the slut fell to his knees again, and further, prostrating himself with his face pressed to the floor. As if by making himself as small and submissive as possible he might somehow avoid what was coming. His body shuddered against the parquet.

"Think of the stories I'll have to tell when I get home," Miranda wheedled. "No one in the capital has ever seen anything like this."

Gavin hesitated, glancing around the hall. Miranda may have had her back to the lower tables, but she could tell from the anticipatory silence that she wasn't the only person hanging on Gavin's decision. The duke then looked at Ignatius, who was keeping his expression carefully neutral, and finally at the duchess.

When Ardith gave a very tiny shake of her head, Miranda knew she'd won. Gavin immediately turned on Miranda with a grin. "Why not? I'm sure I can take time for a small demonstration. I'd hate for your reportage to be incomplete."

Miranda wanted to bounce and clap her hands like a child with a new toy, but she restrained herself to simply grinning back at Gavin, who was already signaling a nearby footman.

"Send someone to fetch Fang from the kennels. And a pot of stock from the kitchens. Not too hot," he glanced at Miranda and smiled again. "We don't want to do any permanent damage."

"Yes, Your Grace." The man bowed, then grabbed a serving boy and whispered in his ear.

At their feet the slut stopped shaking and went completely still. Miranda hoped he hadn't lost consciousness. She very much wanted to hear him scream.

Then a clatter of running footsteps drew her and everyone else's attention to the back of the room, where another young page came hurrying up the aisle between tables with a piece of paper fluttering in his hand. He stopped in front of the dais, clearly unsure how to proceed, and finally bowed, holding the paper up in the duke's general direction.

"Well bring it to me boy," the duke commanded.

The boy bowed again then, wide eyes glued to the prostrate form of the slut, climbed the stairs. He hesitated, obviously torn between reaching over the slave and stepping around him, then finally leaned forward awkwardly, the knotted belt of his livery falling to brush the naked back at his feet, and handed the paper into the duke's impatient grasp. As soon as it left his fingers, the boy retreated to a safe distance back down the stairs.

Miranda's spirits sank as she watched Gavin read the paper. His expression darkened to the point that she thought it must contain some kind of terrible news, but when he finally spoke, the duke was calm and nonchalant.

"Bad luck, Miranda," Gavin said. "My steward has just arrived from my estate at Greenway with a matter that requires my immediate attention. Our pleasure will have to wait for another time, I'm afraid."

Under the table, Miranda clenched her fists in frustration, but she kept her voice soft and controlled. "But there is no other time. We have to leave in the morning at first light if we're to make the river before nightfall. Surely business can wait another quarter hour?"

But the duke was already pushing himself back from the table. One of the footmen rushed forward to hold his chair for him. "I'm afraid it can't. According to my man, it's a matter of some urgency."

"And does a servant dictate to the most powerful duke in the eastern realm?" It was a desperate attempt, born of frustration, and, Miranda realized immediately, a mistake. Gavin's face went as dark as it had when he'd first read the note.

"I certainly wouldn't expect you to understand the demands of running a duchy, my lady," Gavin said coldly. "Business always takes precedence over pleasure." He looked at the page, still waiting by the foot of the steps. "Tell Sebastian I'll meet him in my private study."

"Yes, Your Grace." The boy bowed again and hurried back down the aisle, past the tables where the Eastreach retainers and hangers-on were taking hurried last bites. Once the duke retired, the meal was considered officially over and anyone who lingered was likely to have his plate snatched out from under him by the cleaning staff, eager to clear and reset for the morning meal.

The duchess and Ignatius both rose from their seats, and Miranda had no choice but to follow suit. Gavin gave her a tight, polite smile. "I'm afraid I won't see you before you leave," he said. "I never breakfast publicly."

"We're very grateful for your hospitality, Your Grace," Ignatius said with a nervous glance at his wife.

"Feel free to stop with us any time you come east," Gavin replied. He looked at Miranda and relented enough to wink at her. "Perhaps next time we'll be able to pick up where we left off, eh?"

Miranda found herself incapable of speech. Instead, she dropped a deep curtsy. Perhaps the duke would think the glimpse down her bodice was her reply. Before she was upright again, Gavin had slipped out through the alcove hidden behind his chair.

"Thank you so much for bringing me news of the court, Lord Montrose," Ardith simpered. "I do hope we'll see you when we're there in the spring." She offered her hand and Ignatius sketched a bow over it. Miranda curtsied again. Then the duchess followed her husband, leaving Miranda and Ignatius alone on the dais with the still-prostrate slut.

Miranda wanted to cry. She wanted to stamp her feet and throw a wailing, screeching five-year-old tantrum. But as she was a grown noblewoman, she had to restrict herself to a muttered, "It's not fair!" when her husband appeared at her side and offered her his arm. "He doesn't deserve him. He'll never break him properly. He could be so perfect."

"You did what you could," Ignatius soothed. "It's not the end of the world. At least you'll have a good story to tell your gossip-monger friends about. None of them have ever had a boy at their mercy like that."

"None of them would know what to do with a boy at their mercy," Miranda sniffed.

"Well then you can curl their hair a little. Titillate them with the possibilities. Drive them mad with jealousy."

"You have a point," Miranda admitted. But she stood still, staring at the boy, making no move to leave the dais. Ignatius had to give her a good tug to get her underway.

She could feel the boy pulling at her even as Ignatius led her down the steps and toward the doors at the far end of the hall. Before they joined the throng passing through them, she paused to look back just once at the beautiful slut, still lying motionless where he'd fallen face-down on the dais.


	2. Chapter Two

_Focus. Breathe. Think._

_Preparation, needle. Grasp the needle. ("No, not at the end boy, it's a needle not a trowel – just far enough from the point to measure the stitch.") Thimble. Stroke the needle. Catch the base. Thimble moves the needle, pivots it to bite the cloth, and back up. Left hand breaks the cloth over the point. ("Don't turn your wrist, boy, if you do that every time it'll wear out before you ever make journeyman.") Thimble does the work. Bite, break, push, grasp, pull. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat . . ._

Kurt knelt on the dais, face still pressed into the floor in supplication to no one any more, listening to the lesser lords, ladies, soldiers and hangers-on make their way out of the great hall. In his head he recited his tailor's litany, desperate to pull back the tattered shreds of his self-discipline. Anyone else, in his position, might have prayed, but needle and thread were the only religion Kurt recognized, and Master Tailor Neric the only priest. He wanted to be up and off the dais, but he didn't try to move at all as he chanted. He stayed perfectly still against the cold, hard wood. He didn't have any other choice.

_Forestitch, small, straight, even. Basting and light seaming. Hours with the forestitch, days, weeks. Thimble finger tied into position with a soft black ribbon. Bite, break, push, grasp, pull. Pick out his uneven attempts and start all over again._ _By the time he'd staggered home half asleep at the end of each day, his fingers had been cramped and frozen in the needle hold. He'd cried with the pain as his father massaged them back to usefulness, then cried even harder when Burt suggested that maybe he shouldn't go back. Maybe twelve was too young to apprentice. He could wait another year. But no matter how bad the nights, the rising sun always found him answering the needle's call again._

He didn't move because he couldn't. Before all this, before he'd been taken, Kurt had always thought the idea of being paralyzed by fear was simple hyperbole. He'd used the phrase himself, oh so dramatically, to his father describing a near miss with a clutch of bullies (the village of Pluna was far too backward to ever appreciate someone with Kurt's particular flair), or to Master Neric, as each of his skills examinations loomed. But that had been in another life. A life where, even in his worst nightmares he'd never imagined a fear so intense, so overwhelming, that it could stretch tendons and lock muscles until every breath and heartbeat was a struggle for life against icy, bone-crushing pressure and the insidious voice that whispered inside him that maybe this was the time, maybe it just wasn't worth fighting anymore.

_Breathe. Think. Backstitch, the tailor's plowhorse. ("You'll probably take more backstitches in your life than breaths, boy. It's the blood in your veins. You'll be more intimately acquainted with it than with any lover.") Catch the last stitch with absolute precision. Graceful, rhythmic, bite, break, push, grasp, pull. Tension the top layer to make up for the angle and finally he started to feel like he might have a chance, he filled whole squares of cloth with straight, even stitches and when Master Neric looked over his shoulder and harrumphed and nodded, Kurt felt like he'd swallowed the sun and it was trying to burst through his skin in beams of pure joy._

It had never happened to him during what Gavin like to call his training. Then, punishments had always been beatings and Kurt had learned that pain, even the excruciating kind that made you absolutely certain you'd rather die than take one more hit, wasn't at all the same as fear. Paralyzing fear wasn't contingent on pain at all. He never knew when it would hit him. Sometimes it took him completely by surprise. But today he'd seen it coming as soon as that woman had said "punishment." Gavin never beat him. A slave covered in bruises didn't draw the covetous gasps from onlookers that the duke craved. His punishments were on a completely different level. And Kurt had known, standing there with his dick pulsing in the woman's sharp-nailed hand – with everyone watching – he'd know it would be the dog again.

_No. Think. What was next? Wavestitch, Master Neric had to explain the name to Kurt, who in landlocked Pluna had never seen a body of water bigger than the millers' pond. The master's nimble hands had undulated through the air until Kurt could see the waves rolling, toward the land, away, and back again. He'd dreamt, as he made his careful double stitches, of standing on the ocean's shore, with the beautiful white towers of Concordia City at his back, watching those waves flow like his stitches across the fabric. He loved the wavestitch. Sometimes he could actually feel himself bob where he sat cross-legged on his broad bench, floating in his imaginary sea. The air seemed cleaner, sharp with the salt tang Master Neric described, when Kurt practiced the wavestitch. It felt like freedom._

Kurt's breathing was slowing, thank the gods, and the whirlwind in his head starting to calm. Wavestitch always helped. His awareness spread out, beyond his own body and the wood he knelt on. He could hear the clatter of dishes, which meant that the room had cleared of guests. Servants would be moving among the tables, he knew, scraping food scraps into heavy baskets to be carted away for pigslop, and stacking plates to be carried back to the washroom. Kurt very much wanted to be out of the hall before any of them made their way up to the dais.

Most of the duke's servants regarded Kurt as a kind of troublesome, pampered pet. He did no work that they could see and because his movements were limited by his nudity, he created plenty of extra work for them. His meals had to be brought to him, his bed linens collected, his chamber pot emptied. Kurt was polite to the point of deference when he encountered them, but even the few who might be disposed to pity him lowered their gazes in his presence and shied away whenever they passed him in a corridor. He reminded them, uncomfortably, he was sure, of how far it was possible to fall. For others, the temptation of having someone lower than themselves to abuse was irresistible. Usually he simply paid no attention. Their attacks were always verbal – they feared the duke too much to attempt anything more – and gods knew Kurt had a lifetime's experience ignoring taunts and jeers. But at the moment his grip on himself was still too tenuous. He wasn't sure it could withstand the humiliation of being mocked by a bunch of kitchen wenches because he was groveling on the floor, too scared to move.

_Have to move. Keep breathing. Prickstitch, gods how he'd hated the prickstitch. As soon as he'd managed a little bit of facility, some measure of ease, suddenly everything changed. It was a tiny change, slide the needle between the layers, pick up just the fewest possible threads, but it left his hands fumbling as if they'd never sewn a stitch before. He had wanted to scream and rant at his traitorous fingers. It got worse when Master Neric's useless son Cale and his idiot friends figured out how much they loved playing tease-the-apprentice. "How's that prick stitch coming Kurt?" "Is that prick still giving you trouble, Kurt?" "Oh, I think he's got the prick well in hand, don't you Kurt? I'm pretty sure the prick's his favorite . . ." They'd run away the moment the master appeared, and Kurt would just continue to work in silence, his face burning with humiliation. They didn't know, they couldn't know, they were just stupid boys making the most obvious stupid joke. But Kurt knew. He was old enough then to know that he was different. Different in a way that wasn't decent._

_He despised the prickstitch. But then halfway through Kurt's battle with it, Master Neric decided he no longer needed the black ribbon holding his thimble finger in place, and then there wasn't room inside of Kurt to hate anything. Removing the ribbon meant he'd passed the first test. It was the symbolic expression of Master Neric's belief in his ability to make this journey. There was no doubt, then, that he was on a path that would take him to mastery himself, and away from Pluna and her small-minded inhabitants forever. As long as he lived, Kurt would never forget the fierce triumph he'd felt in that moment. His entire future, everything he'd ever dreamed of, was in his grasp, worked in perfect white prickstitches on rough black wool._

His body began to tremble against the wood of the dais. That was good. It was normal for his muscles to tremble with fatigue before they finally gave up and unlocked. Just in time, too, because the sounds of clearing were making their way closer to the dais and Kurt was still stuck on the floor. He was breathing more easily, and his heart had slowed down enough that he could actually tell one beat from another, but he wasn't moving yet.

It was the woman who'd done it. The horrible woman with her pale blue skirts that reflected the light like knife blades and her careful, questioning eyes that had seen right through him, effortlessly.

Kurt's survival depended on never being seen. At some point during his training, lying on the thin mattress in the cell they'd kept him in, every muscle throbbing after being beaten for some indiscretion or another, Kurt had realized that he was going to lose his mind. That was the entire point. Gavin had told the woman that a slut was meant to have no will or thought beyond pleasing his master, and on that random day it had become clear to Kurt that the more he fought, the harder they'd punish him, until eventually his mind snapped. They would push him with torture and humiliation until there was nothing left of him but an empty vessel. And then if his slavery ever came to an end, there wouldn't be a Kurt Hummel left to notice.

So although part of him had wanted, still wanted, to fight, he knew with absolute certainty that he would lose. The only way to make sure Kurt Hummel survived was to build a wall between his body and his mind. They could have his body. He would let them do to it whatever they wanted. He would go where they wanted him to go, say what they wanted him to say, suck what they wanted him to suck. He let them teach his flesh to respond in whatever way they required. And when he was deemed ready to be turned over to the duke, he did exactly as he was told in perfect submission. On the outside. He wore the mask of the slut, inhabited it, so that Kurt, dramatic, fierce, _free_ Kurt, had a hope of surviving.

And it worked. It was almost easy. His trainers were so invested in imprinting him with the persona of slut that they never even asked his name. They knew nothing at all about him, and without that knowledge they couldn't touch the essence of who he was. Underneath the performance that he gave every day, Kurt was untouchable. As long as nobody suspected him lurking there just below all the _yes masters_. And for half a year nobody ever did. Because Gavin was a bully, but he was no sadist. He loved power, and as long as he believed he had complete power over Kurt, it never occurred to him that his slut wasn't exactly what he appeared to be. He punished misbehavior, because misbehavior threatened his power. He enjoyed Kurt's begging or screaming because it meant that his power had been unquestionably restored. But he never really saw the way his punishments broke Kurt open, drove into all the secret places where he thought he was safe and pushed him to the verge of losing himself all over again. Kurt had been punished three times during his half year at the castle, and each time it had been harder to pull himself back together. Each time his grip on _Kurt_ felt more tenuous.

Gavin had never noticed, but that woman – she was different. She'd looked at him for mere moments and _seen_. Like a bloodhound she'd sniffed out his secret rebellion and zeroed in on the exact thing that terrified him most. And he'd been saved, this time, by the steward, but she was still here. She was spending the night in the castle and at any point, just a word in Gavin's ear and Kurt's entire carefully-crafted façade would be destroyed.

And that kind of thinking Kurt scolded himself, would never get his frozen limbs to unlock. He needed to stop worrying about things he couldn't control and keep concentrating on what he could.

_Knifestitch, tiny and straight, for tacking lining or casting edges. Bite and break, sideways step, bite and break._

_Padstitch, little side stitches placed just so to form beautiful chevron patterns for thickening and strengthening. He loved to experiment with placement, finding new designs._

_Briarstitch, the hardest of all to keep even, moving side to side, needle passing over the thread, painstaking but perfect for easing pleats and tucks, for decorating a detail, pocket or collar . . ._

Briarstitch worked in a border of blood red on shining leather, framing the dog's name . . .

No, gods, _fuck_ he wasn't supposed to do briarstitch anymore, he forgot, and the flash of the collar behind his eyes was all it took. Kurt was right back, kneeling in the center of the hall, frozen, like now, but upright, exposed to all those eyes, to the dog's hot tongue, paralyzed with fear as hot juices ran over his body and the tongue like a rasp on his flesh, mindlessly, mindlessly licking, vicious white teeth flashing and _don't move slut, if you move he'll bite and then you'll be pissing through a stump, if you don't bleed to death first. _He'd cried, cried and begged but his body did as it was bid and after the orgasm was forced from him by the stinking tongue and the juice kept pouring and the dog kept licking, he'd screamed, screamed for what felt like hours until his body began to respond again, and all the while the horrible briarstitch traced in ugly, amateur lines like thorns on the collar . . .

"No!" The force of his shout was like bursting awake from a nightmare. Kurt pulled his hands into fists and miraculously they went, and in a chain reaction the rest of his body fell heavily sideways as his muscles finally collapsed.

The room went silent as his cry drew everyone's attention to the dais. Floppy and shaking, Kurt shoved himself backward, away from approaching servants and the image of the dog in his head. Back through the tapestry that curtained off the duke's secret entrance alcove. It fell heavily behind him, cutting off his view of the high table and leaving him in near-darkness, still pressed to the floor.

But alone. Thank the gods. His breath dragged in and out of his body in shuddering rasps that hurt his lungs and his heart was racing again, but at least he was mobile. He pushed himself up to sit, leaning heavily against the wall of the alcove, and tried to slow his panicked breaths. He counted,_inhale, one, two three, exhale . . . _until the air was moving quietly, if not exactly slowly, quiet enough that he could feel reasonably sure none of the servants cleaning the hall would hear him and realize he hadn't gone straight out the door at the far end of the alcove.

He needed to make his way back to the duke's apartments eventually. Loitering here was a risk, especially after the amount of time he'd spent wrestling with his body on the dais, but it was a risk Kurt had to take. Going back in this state was out of the question. He needed to find his equilibrium; get the mask of the slut firmly back in place. And as long as Gavin really was meeting with his steward all afternoon, no one would know that he'd lingered.

Besides, his dick was still hard, of course. Abject terror was never enough to make him lose his erection. On the contrary, fear only ever seemed to make him harder, as if the more intense things got, the more his cock struggled to appease its tormentors through perfect obedience. It was one of the many things all those beatings had trained him for. Here in the alcove the wood parquet of the dais gave way to bare, cold stone and Kurt spread his legs in front of him as wide as the small space would allow, rolling forward to give his balls more contact with the icy surface. It hurt, enough to make him wince and stifle a groan, but the tears that sprang to his eyes were from humiliation, not pain. Unacceptable, he told himself firmly, blinking them back. Kurt Hummel did what he had to do. Kurt Hummel didn't cry, not anymore, not unless they forced him to. And there was no shame in surviving. He focused on the pain. The pain was familiar. His balls always hurt. He'd grown as used to the deep ache as he had to the sexual need that had taken up permanent residence in the pit of his stomach.

Need. Not desire. Never desire. Gavin could force him to feel things – to need things – but no one could make him want them. He hated the times that the duke made him come only slightly less than he hated punishments. Because no matter how hard a grip he tried to keep on himself, there was always a moment, that split-second point of no return, when Kurt knew he was finally going to be allowed to fall over the edge of inevitability, that he wanted it. He craved it. He would do anything to be allowed to have it. A tiny fraction of time when, mixed with the intense, overwhelming pleasure, he was automatically and instinctively _grateful_. A moment, fleeting, but there, when he belonged to Gavin, body and soul. In that moment of orgasm, he truly was the duke's slut.

Kurt held his breath and pushed down even harder against the floor, letting the pain wash his thoughts away as the chill from the stones finally began to seep past the heat of his flesh. Mercifully, the pressure in his cock started to loosen and he let out his breath in relief. It was bad enough having to walk around the castle naked. Waddling along with his stiff cock bouncing in front of him was too ridiculous to be borne.

His hands were still clenched into fists, and he forced them to relax as well, until his fingers lay flat against the stone floor. A fist was rebellion and rebellion was always swiftly punished. Kurt had never realized, until he'd been taken, how much frustration he'd vented all his life through clenched fists, carefully hidden in pockets or the folds of a tunic. Of course there were no pockets or folds now, not for him, and he had to be constantly aware of his hands, more even than his face. When he put on the mask of blank indifference it tended to stay in place. But his hands were always ready to betray him.

With breathing, cock and hands under control, Kurt closed his eyes and reached inside himself to find the core of stillness, the focal point of the part he had to play. The clink and clank of dishes being stacked on the other side of the tapestry helped him. Like the kitchen wenches, he was just part of the machinery of the castle. He had a job to do and he was ready to do it. He reached for the handle of the door and started to pull himself to his feet.

"Psst!"

Kurt's heart slammed into his throat and he froze in a half-crouch. Being caught was the last thing he needed. He turned slowly, like a man facing execution, to look behind him.

No one was there.

"Psst! Mary!"

The voice was coming from the other side of the tapestry, in the hall. Kurt sagged back against the wall in relief, then glared down at his penis, which of course had gone rigid again from the sudden scare. He would have beat his head against the wall if he wasn't afraid of being heard. Was one iota of control to much to ask?

"What do you want girl?" a second voice, full of exasperation, whispered back. "There's work to be done."

Kurt slid silently down the wall to sit back on the floor. He had to wait for his erection again, but that wasn't the only reason he didn't slip out the door. Eavesdropping on servants was something he rarely had a chance to do, and information of any kind was worth the risk of discovery. His father had used to say that knowledge was power, but Kurt had learned that, at least for him now, knowledge was often safety.

"Who was that man?" the first voice murmured with breathless curiosity. "The handsome on who was lurking in the doorway while that lady played with the slut?"

The second woman, Mary, laughed. Kurt recognized the derisive tone immediately. There were several Marys among the castle staff, but this was Mary the kitchen-keeper, who managed the serving staff with an iron fist and who never made any attempt to hide her distaste for Kurt, or for anything else. Nasty as she was, though, Kurt was thrilled to hear her voice. She was someone who was actually in a position to know things.

"Oh, that one," Mary said, her voice dripping with her usual disdain. "That was _Mister_ Sebastian Smythe."

"Who?" the girl asked, echoing Kurt's thought exactly.

"He's the under-steward at His Grace's estate at Greenway, in the north."

"Greenway? What's he doing down here then?"

"Not that it's your business, but he comes twice a year to bring the estate accounts for His Grace to review. Now if it pleases you milady," Mary said, deceptively sweet, "would you care to do the job His Grace pays you for?"

"He's so beautiful," the first maid said, a dreamy lilt in her voice and apparently no intention of obeying. The steward from Greenway must be beautiful indeed if just the thought of him was worth her risking the wrath of kitchen-keeper Mary.

There was silence for a moment, then, surprisingly, another huffing laugh from Mary. "I see how it is. Well take my advice girl. Don't go setting your cap for that one. He's not for you."

"An under-steward isn't too high for a kitchen maid to reach," the girl protested.

"That particular under-steward is out of the reach of any maid, kitchen or otherwise."

The girl groaned. "He's married?"

"No." Mary drew out the word, teasingly, and Kurt could hear the relish in her voice. She was starting to enjoy having a bit of juicy gossip to share.

"Well if he's not married then I don't see why I shouldn't have a go at him."

There was shuffling on the other side of the tapestry, as if Mary was pulling her listener deeper into a private corner, and when she spoke again her voice was so quiet that, close as they were, Kurt had to strain to hear it. "That one will never be married." She paused dramatically, then finally, "He doesn't like women."

If the serving girl was half as stunned as Kurt was by the revelation, Mary must be very pleased with herself indeed. If Mary meant what he thought she did . . . Kurt had never in his whole life heard anyone even reference the idea out loud, much less attribute it to a specific person. Nothing in the world could have made him move now. He held his breath, desperate not to miss a word, and willed the girl to keep asking questions.

"What do you mean he doesn't like women?" she obliged, loud enough that Mary hissed a warning.

"He prefers men," Mary whispered, somehow managing to make the words sound titillating and disgusting at the same time.

Kurt inched silently closer to the tapestry that separated them. How in the world could she know such a thing? Was it just a rumor? Spiteful speculation borne of dislike?

"Prefers them for what?"

Silence, then Mary must have found some non-verbal way to communicate her meaning because the maid gasped out loud and Mary had to shush her again.

"You mean to lie with?!" she finally said, in a tiny, shocked voice.

Kurt's heart was racing and his hands had clenched into fists again. He didn't even bother trying to loosen them. It would have been unthinkable, back in Pluna, to even speak about such things. But to attribute them to the duke's own steward? How did she dare? And what if it were true? Kurt knew he wasn't the only one, he couldn't be, but to be open enough about it that you inspired servants' gossip – who would take such a risk?

"That doesn't make any sense." The girl seemed to still be struggling with the whole idea. "Two men together like . . . like a man and a woman? It's not possible."

"By the Render, girl, what do you think His Grace does with the slut?"

"I'm not stupid," the girl protested. "I know the slut sucks His Grace's cock. But anyone can suck a cock. And it's not like he _wants_ to do it, is it? And didn't His Grace just say one mouth is as good as another?"

"Take my word for it girl. Men can lie with men. It's a perversion and an insult to the Maker and I wouldn't dirty myself by explaining the details of it to you, and if we weren't all living under corrupt western rule it'd certainly be illegal. That Sebastian is as deviant as they come. But don't let that stop you from waving your tits in his face and finding out for yourself. After these tables are cleared."

Mary must have started to walk away because when the girl spoke again it was louder, as if calling her back. "I don't believe it!" she protested, pout heavy in her voice. "And I think it's very wrong of you to spread rumors like that about respectable men. What would His Grace say if he knew?"

There was movement then, the serving girl yelped, and jerked as if she'd been pulled, almost knocking into Kurt, who was standing so close to the tapestry that her movement made it brush against his skin. For a moment the only sound was heavy breathing from both women, and when Mary spoke again her voice was tight and harsh. "That _rumor_ was started by Sebastian himself," she said, "the last time he was here. When another stupid wench decided to take a run at him. He came right out and told her, bold as brass. Said the only way he'd be interested in her was if she was hiding a cock under her skirts. So unless you've got a cock under your skirt . . ."

There was a rustle of fabric and another stifled yelp from the girl. Kurt suspected Mary was checking for a cock herself. He wouldn't put it past her.

"And I'm quite sure you weren't just threatening me. Because a smart girl would know that blackmail is grounds for dismissal without a letter. And that the right words in the right ears would ensure that no household in the eastern realm would ever take her on again."

"No, no I didn't mean to . . ." The girl's voice was soft and contrite. "I just – it's hard to believe anyone would come out and tell people something like that. It's so wrong, like you said. Evil."

Kurt was inclined to agree with her. Not about the evil part, of course, but the idea that someone would just announce what to him was the greatest secret he'd ever had – what kind of person would do that? What kind of person _could_?

"Yes, well, that Sebastian has always had conceit to spare," Mary answered. "Above his station, if you ask me. And apparently they're more liberal about such things in the north, just like the west. They even have a name for it. _Reversed_." The way she spat the word left no doubt as to what Mary thought about the liberality of foreign people and their names for things. "Like it's nothing at all. Just another way to be. And since Mister Smythe is so determinedly _reversed_, I suggest you forget about spreading your legs for under-stewards and turn your attention to your job. While it still is your job."

"Reversed," the maid repeated, drawing out the word, her distaste obvious. Then the tapestry fluttered again and the sound of dishes being stacked resumed.

Kurt pushed himself up the wall on shaking legs. He wrapped his hand around the knob of the hidden door, desperate for something to anchor him. His breath stuttered in and out of his chest.

"Reversed," he whispered, daringly, but he had to say it out loud. It had a name. And somewhere there was a place where people had given it a name. A nice name, not "perverted" or "deviant" or any of a dozen other ugly words that had been flung at him on a regular basis back in Pluna. Just a simple opposite. Other. _Reversed_.

And even more, right here in the castle, meeting with the duke at this moment, was someone who embraced that name, and that part of himself, who wasn't afraid to announce it to anyone who asked. Kurt couldn't understand how such a person could exist. He'd never imagined, not even in his most cherished dreams of freedom in Concordia City, being able to openly express that part of himself.

And he wouldn't, he told himself firmly, because he was trapped here, the duke's slut. He couldn't, he mustn't forget that for a moment. Nothing had changed for him. It didn't matter what happened in the north or the west because he would never see those places. What he would see was that damn dog and his briar-stitched collar if he didn't get his head back together and pay attention to the things that his life and sanity depended on. The façade was the only thing that kept him safe. Distracted, he would make mistakes. And mistakes would lead to punishment. He took a breath, straightened his shoulders, arranged his features into the slut's mask and turned the doorknob. The only important thing about the whole conversation was that it had taken his mind of his fear long enough to give his dick time to fall limp again. He could only hope his brain would soon follow its example.

But as he slipped into the mercifully deserted corridor, he couldn't help imagining a beautiful man asking an incredulous serving wench if she had a cock under her skirt. And he couldn't quite manage to squash the warm, golden glow the thought ignited in his chest.


	3. Chapter Three

Kurt tried very hard to keep his promise to himself not to think about Sebastian. He failed spectacularly.

It was an ironic fact of Kurt's life as a slave that, sadistic nobles and terrifying punishments aside, the biggest day-to-day challenge he faced was the exact same one he'd struggled with most of his life back in Pluna: boredom.

He really only had one job to do and when he wasn't doing it, which was most of the time, he was kept, usually alone, always silent, in the corner of the sitting room where he crouched now, waiting to serve again. Hour after hour. Day after day.

It must have looked, to the casual observer, like a very pleasant kind of captivity. The duke's private apartment comprised five spacious, luxurious rooms. Aside from the bedchamber, with its requisite canopied four-poster, there was a dining room, a washroom, a dark, study shelved with books Kurt was sure the duke had never read, and this sitting room, all connected by a long gallery hung with paintings of the duke's illustrious ancestors. Kurt spent his days close to the warming fire, surrounded by an opulence that someone who lacked his liberal standards in such areas might have called gaudy. The cushions he knelt on were sewn from the kind of silk that had haunted his dreams back in Master Neric's workshop, and they were stuffed with the finest eiderdown money could buy. Servants brought him food at mealtimes – the exact same delicacies that were delivered to the duke himself. When he wasn't sucking cock or being tortured, Kurt was as well cared for as any expensive, exotic pet.

It would have been reasonable to expect, given how invariably unpleasant any kind of activity was for him, that Kurt would welcome its absence. And he did, of course he did. But boredom was an unexpectedly insidious enemy. It snuck up on him. It enticed his mind with thoughts that seemed innocuous at first – _the snowdrops would be blooming now in that clearing in Abbot's Woods, he used to love to pick them and bring them inside to warm the house after the long dismal winter _– but then the snowdrops would become the wildflowers he'd scattered on his father's grave, alone, after everyone else had left, lifting his hands high so that the wind carried some of them to fall against his mother's stone as well . . .

Sometimes boredom tormented him directly, ambushing him with images of Master Neric, still and pale in his bed, the rise and fall of his chest the only indication that he yet lived, although Kurt had to assume he was dead by now. The stroke had felled him only days before Kurt had been kidnapped. His last memories of the old man, his second father really, were of him unconscious and unresponsive, his wife Genaa quietly crying by his bedside, and their son Cale, the Render knew where. Drinking probably. Or gambling. In any case, already hard at work squandering whatever legacy his father had to leave him.

But it wasn't just the past that confronted Kurt during his long hours alone in the corner. Sometimes it was the bitterness of all the things he'd almost had that overwhelmed him. He'd think of his journeyman's letter, tucked safely in the box of keepsakes he'd kept under his bed in the garret over the workshop, where he'd slept since Master Neric took him in after Burt died. The letter had been his freedom. He'd cried when Master Neric had signed it with large, swooping letters and pressed it into Kurt's hands. With it, Kurt could go anywhere. All his life he'd dreamed of Concordia City, with its royal court and ocean waves. Master Neric would tell him tales while they worked of the beautiful city where he'd grown up and been a promising talent. Love had taken the master away from the city, love for a girl he'd met during his journeyman travels. But they still remembered him, he always told Kurt. His work had been the talk of the city. His letter, he promised, would guarantee Kurt employment in even the best establishments.

Kurt didn't know where the box was now. Gone, probably, and the letter along with it. And the ribbon that had tied his finger in place during the first months of his apprenticeship; the flowers he'd kept and carefully dried after each of his parent's funerals; the little wooden doll his father had carved for him when he was only five or six. The doll had been Kurt's first dressmaker's form. He'd stitched scraps into patchwork tunics and breeches, skirts and blouses, using needle and thread pilfered from his mother's sewing box. He'd kept a few of his early creations as well, folded neatly alongside the doll. All gone. Left in a box under a bed in an attic in a world that was lost to him now.

Those were the places Kurt's mind tried to go during the long empty days of his captivity. He had strategies to keep himself occupied of course – Kurt always had strategies. But as the afternoon dragged on it became harder and harder for him to remember what danger there could possibly be in fantasizing about the beautiful, mysterious, _reversed_ stranger the maids had described.

Sebastian was something new, and diversions, innocent ones that couldn't hurt him, were rare and welcome. And even more tantalizing to Kurt was the fact that Sebastian was like him. It wasn't just that he liked men, although that in itself was certainly enough to fire up Kurt's active imagination. There was more to it than that. Mary had called Sebastian conceited and _above his station_ – things that Kurt had been accused of on a regular basis, back in Pluna, for the unforgiveable crime of being different and having ambitions that reached beyond the border of a small-minded, backwater village. And his one tangible piece of information about the steward was the most important thing of all. Sebastian knew who he was. He wasn't afraid to be who he was. How could Kurt not be fascinated by such a person?

Especially when the person was, at this very moment, not ten yards away meeting with the duke in the private study. The private study that shared it's back wall with the sitting room.

Kurt tried. He really tried to force his brain to focus on his current boredom-conquering activity: the (wholly imaginary) wedding dress he was making for Eloise, the daughter of the blacksmith back in Pluna. That morning he'd finally worked out how he wanted to construct the sleeve, which meant he had about a hundred tiny pleats to sew, but every time he started to lose himself in folding the fine, illusory linen the indistinct murmur of voices from the study teased his ear and the dress disappeared. It was just too much, knowing that Sebastian was _there_, so very close. He couldn't make out any actual words, but when the volume rose, as it did on more than one occasion, there was a discernible difference between Gavin and not-Gavin. Kurt's heart picked up speed every time the voices got louder. It almost sounded like arguing, and the question of what the steward could possibly be arguing with his duke about was too tantalizing to ignore.

Crop rotations, Kurt told himself firmly. Or how many head of cattle were to be sold at the summer auctions. Sebastian was here to report on the state of affairs at the Greenway estate and that was all Sebastian was doing. At the very most, Sebastian had screwed something up and Gavin was upbraiding him for his incompetence. That was all it could possibly be. Kurt's imagination, though, ignored his attempt to force common sense upon it. Burt Hummel used to say that his son could turn two cows grazing at opposite ends of a field into an epic of thwarted romance to rival the most sweeping sagas of the Maker and the Mother of All. (To which Kurt would reply that at least the cows were real, earning him Burt's _why do you have to say that kind of stuff out loud where anyone can hear you_ look.) Once ignited, Kurt's imagination accepted no constraints.

The problem was, Kurt had always had a soft spot for the storybook princes who rode to the rescue in the tales his mother used to read to him when he was a boy. And there was no denying the fact that at the moment he was desperately in need of a little rescuing. A handsome prince – or steward, in this case, which was admittedly less romantic but he wasn't exactly in a position to quibble over details – was a feast to his starving imagination. Sebastian had lingered in the doorway of the great hall – _lurked,_ the maid had said – watching him, and now here he was in private consultation with the duke, raising his voice, arguing. The mystery of Sebastian was a brilliant flame to Kurt's very eager moth. By the time darkness began to fall outside the room's small windows and Reginald, the duke's rabbity butler, appeared to light the lamps, Kurt had firmly cast the unseen Sebastian in the role of daring savior, willing to take on even the exalted Duke of Eastreach; determined to right the wrongs that had been committed against the poor, enslaved journeyman tailor.

Once the floodgates of Kurt's imagination were opened, the fantasies got more and more elaborate. The frowning servant who laid Kurt's supper on the little table next to his cushioned nest interrupted a noble Sebastian confronting the duke right there in his study, threatening to expose some terrible mismanagement he'd found in the estate records unless Kurt was allowed to go free. The six o'clock chiming of the grandfather clock found Sebastian leaving the castle that very night and racing back to the fabled, open-minded north, where he'd easily rouse a band of fellow outraged free-thinkers to come back and liberate Kurt by sheer force of arms. By the time Reginald made his second round, to turn down the duke's bed and set out his nightclothes, the dashing Sebastian was single-handedly scaling the castle wall to appear at the window of the room Kurt slept in and secret him away to safety under cover of darkness. Exactly how Sebastian was supposed to climb three stories of bare stone, Kurt didn't bother to worry about. Heroes always found a way.

It was all right, he told himself, as long as he remembered that these were only fantasies. That Sebastian, in reality, was nothing more than a steward who was actually reviewing tenant rents and acreage assignments, not advocating on his behalf. A simple servant who, no matter how he might feel about Kurt's situation, was going to finish his mission, leave Eastreach, and go back to his home in the north, probably without Kurt ever laying eyes on him. As long as he didn't let himself actually start to believe, as long as there was no fertile soil for a single seed of hope to grow in, then fantasizing about Sebastian didn't seem any more dangerous to Kurt than fantasizing about dressed he would never make, which were much too grand for their intended recipients anyhow.

So for just the one evening, Kurt allowed himself to forget about blow jobs and punishments and noblewomen who had the power to destroy what little safety he'd managed to carve out for himself. And as he lost himself in the kind of dreams that had once defined his life, he started to feel more like Kurt Hummel than he had in a very long time. That was unexpected and precious, for the few hours that it lasted, until the study door opened and the duke and his steward parted company in the gallery, Gavin making his way toward the sitting room and Sebastian slipping out the main door into the public hallway and out of Kurt's life, sight unseen.

* * *

><p>Gavin was in a terrible mood.<p>

The moment he stalked into the room, Kurt remembered why daydreaming about Sebastian had been a bad idea. Reality hit him in the face like a bucket of cold water – there was a frozen moment of shock at being plunged back into the slut's existence before he managed to pull his body into proper position and lower his gaze to the floor. For once luck was on his side, though, as Gavin was too busy berating Reginald for meeting him at the door with wine instead of spirits to notice any failing on Kurt's part. Reginald rang for a bottle of whiskey, Gavin retreated to the washroom, and the page who delivered the decanter was rebuked so soundly through the door for his lack of speed that, once dismissed, he fled the apartment as if the Render himself was at his heels.

Kurt tried to make himself invisible in his corner, counting his inhales and exhales to keep calm. An angry Gavin was dangerous all on his own. Add strong drink and the possibilities presented by the damned Montrose woman, and this night could take a very bad turn indeed.

But Gavin, when he returned from the washroom, didn't seem inclined to leave the suite. Kurt kept his eyes down but didn't take them off the duke for a second, tracking his feet in their tooled-leather boots as he stalked around the room, whiskey in hand. Gavin drained the first glass, which Reginald rushed to refill, then paced some more. He didn't speak, he only walked up and down the room, silently sipping. When he passed Reginald Kurt could see that the valet was nervous too. His weight shifted back and forth in his dainty shoes.

Finally Gavin stopped pacing and settled his bulk in a leather armchair, directly facing Kurt. Kurt's heart was beating like a blacksmith's hammering, not fast, but hard, heavy, each beat fighting against the weight of dread and fear. He didn't dare look up, but he could feel Gavin's eyes on him. It was the silence that was so unnerving. The duke never looked at him, not like this, without command or rebuke. Kurt carefully inventoried all his danger zones. _Face blank, hands loose, jaw relaxed._ He had no doubt Gavin would throw him to the dogs for the smallest mistake.

"Get over here slut."

It was so unexpected and loud after the long silence that Kurt started. Reginald did as well; the stopper clattered sharply against the rim of the whiskey bottle.

"Yes master." Kurt rose immediately, as gracefully as he could manage, and crossed the room to sink to the floor again a few feet from Gavin's chair. At least he was allowed to walk. In his training he'd been made to crawl everywhere, but Gavin enjoyed the sight of him falling to his knees so he was spared that indignity. A small mercy, but mercies were few and Kurt tried to appreciate the ones he had. He clasped his hands behind his back and bowed forward even more than usual, hoping to appease Gavin's strange mood with an extra show of submission.

He expected to have his mouth fucked. This was how it worked at the end of the day. Unless Gavin was going out to find his release elsewhere, he would stand up, open his pants, and shove his cock down Kurt's throat. And Kurt would have welcomed it, tonight, because it meant there was no chance the duke would be spending more time in the company of Lady Montrose.

But once again Gavin did nothing, said nothing. He leaned back in the chair, sipped his whiskey, and contemplated Kurt. Kurt's heart was battering painfully against his ribs now, and he had to work even harder to keep his breathing under control. Nothing about this evening made any sense. Gavin was a creature of habit. Changes in the routine scared Kurt. The known, no matter how unpleasant, was always preferable to the unknown. He couldn't prepare himself for the unknown. There was no way to defend against it.

Finally, as the silence dragged on, Kurt dared to murmur timidly, "May I serve you, master?" Even the prospect of being punished for speaking out of turn was starting to seem preferable to this interminable waiting for the gods knew what.

Gavin drew out the stillness for the space of several more heartbeats before he said, "Fetch the glove, Reg."

Pent-up breath left Kurt's lungs in a rush of relief faster and louder than it should have. Fortunately, Reginald's startled, too-loud, "Right away, Your Grace!" covered his gasp.

An edging, then. Only an edging. Edging Kurt could handle. It wasn't pleasant, but morning and evening edgings were almost a clockwork certainty in Kurt's life. He'd nursed a tiny hope that he might avoid it tonight, after the display in the great hall at dinner, but given the wealth of other activities the duke could have had in store for him, a third edging was definitely a lesser evil.

Reginald was back in a flash, eager, as always, already pulling on the rough leather glove that was used for this express purpose. The glove, with its heavy nap and exposed seams, was meant to make sure that discomfort always accompanied Kurt's pleasure. Kurt would have liked to have told Gavin that nothing about this was pleasurable, but his dick, well-trained traitor that it was, was already stirring at the sight of the glove. At least the burgeoning tumescence seemed to placate Gavin. He chuckled over the rim of his glass, a dark, lustful sound that made Kurt's skin crawl, but better dark and lustful and _here_ than off sneaking into Lady Montrose's bed. Before he could be commanded, Kurt folded himself into the position he knew Gavin would want him in – leaning backward with his forearms on the floor behind him.

"Well someone's eager."

And it wasn't even as if the duke was wrong, Kurt thought bitterly. The bent-backwards position curved his body into a bow with his jutting cock at the apex and his tight, heavy balls swinging obscenely below it. At least the contorted position let Kurt hang his head back so he avoided even accidentally glancing at either of the men whose eyes were no doubt fixated on his genitals. He couldn't stand to see the different flavors of lust on their faces. It reduce and objectified him and made it harder to hold onto the part of himself that was separate from the slut.

The downside was that he couldn't see what was about to happen; the first touch of the rough glove, fingers cupping his balls, surprised him and he gasped out loud.

"Our slut's quite sensitive, Reg," Gavin said, starting to sound more relaxed, more like Kurt expected him to sound. "But then I imagine he would be after all he's been through today. This should be fun for you."

"Yes, Your Grace." The valet seemed eager, but his hand, directed by Gavin of course, didn't move. It simply held Kurt's balls and caressed the tight skin around them with one heavy thumb. The friction was tantalizing. Kurt's need was a constant fire in his body, but a fire tamped down to hot ash and embers. When he was touched like this the embers sparked up, loud and demanding. And as they flared now, he knew the rough teasing would never be enough. Kurt's body wanted more. Kurt just wanted it to be over.

So, serving both desires, he twitched his hips minutely upward and tightened his groin muscles to make his cock jump.

He didn't always perform. Often, like on the dais at dinner in front of so many people, the humiliation was too much to bear. Mostly, though, he just hated doing any more than he absolutely had to to please Gavin. But pleasing Gavin seemed increasingly important as this evening went on. Kurt could smell the fumes from the whiskey even bent over backward and facing the wrong way. And that, combined with the moodiness Gavin had shown since he parted ways with Sebastian made tonight feel frightening and dangerous.

Kurt pushed the thought of the steward away. He didn't want Sebastian to be part of this; didn't want to know what Sebastian would think if he could see Kurt like this, offering his body up for torment. It was part of the training, Gavin making him position himself, making him ask to be used. Kurt had no choice, but the illusion that he was colluding with his captor was powerful, no matter how emphatically he reminded himself that he was only doing what he had to to survive.

At least his desperate act was working. "I think he wants your hand on his cock, Reg," Gavin practically purred. "What do you say, slut? Ask nicely and I'll consider it."

_Fuck you,_ Kurt thought, but what he said was, "Please, master."

"There we go," Gavin said, like he was encouraging a recalcitrant child. "Well go on, Reg. Give the slut what he wants."

"With pleasure, Your Grace." The valet squeezed Kurt's balls once, hard, just to torture him, then slid his gloved hand up to grip Kurt's cock. It was a relief, Kurt had to admit, just to have some pressure there as counterbalance to the need, and his cock flexed against Reginald's fingers as if greeting an old friend. Which made sense. Kurt's dick and the valet's hand shared a long, intimate acquaintance.

Gavin drank his whiskey in loud slurps as Reginald began to stroke, pumping Kurt's cock fast and hard. It was always like this, rough, no buildup, just a headlong rush to the edge of satisfaction and no further. Gavin liked it that way. No-nonsense frustration. Get Kurt there quickly and keep him there as long as Reginald could manage to drag it out. Then leave him suitably chastised and obedient in the hope that someday he might be allowed to tip over that edge.

And this was where Kurt's body parted company with his brain. Kurt hated the edgings, hated being made such a literal plaything, hated the rough friction that stirred up heat and need. But Kurt's starved flesh embraced the pleasure, familiar, hot, tightening in his balls and warming his belly. His body whispered, then demanded, then screamed at him to give in to the pure, throbbing sensation. His body didn't care that there was no release waiting for it at the end of all the teasing. It wanted to fuck against the gloved fingers, scratch the itch that was always, always there and so very rarely assuaged. Kurt didn't know how many times he'd been allowed to come in the six months he'd been a slave. He refused to keep track of how long it had been, like it was some kind of treat he craved. He was Kurt Hummel, damn it, and the one thing Gavin couldn't control was his mind. The one thing that couldn't be commanded was his desire.

All the same, he really wanted this to be over. And like it or not, the more he sold it, the faster that would happen.

It didn't take much effort. All he really had to do was let his body do what it wanted to anyhow. He began to pant, dragging air into his lungs in long, dramatic shudders. He let himself gasp when Reginald ran the palm of the glove over the swollen head of his cock on each upstroke. He kept his reactions one step ahead of the pumping fist so despite his desperate flesh, he was still far from any real danger of coming when he felt the first of the slick pre-fluid dribble from his slit. That was his cue. Thank the gods Gavin wasn't a leaker, so he was happy to assume that the slick meant orgasm was imminent. And Kurt wasn't about to disabuse him of that notion. He let a moan escape his tight throat, strangled, as if he was fighting against it, fucked a few times into Reginald's hand, because it still felt so good no matter how much he hated it, and murmured with just the right touch of desperate reluctance, "I'm close, master."

The gloved hand disappeared. Kurt's cock begged to chase it but he forced his hips down. He was done. The show was over.

"Did I tell you to stop?" Gavin asked in a quiet, dangerous voice.

Kurt's breath caught. Gavin always called a halt when Kurt was close. Always. And on those few occasions that Kurt had been made to come, it was done quickly, perfunctorily, without the teasing buildup of an edging. This, again, was something new. Something that hadn't happened before – except on the dais that afternoon with his dick in that woman's hands but Kurt wasn't going to think about that.

"N-no, Your Grace," Reginald responded. Kurt could hear the hesitation in his voice. This was uncharted territory for the valet too. If he made Kurt come without an express command from the duke, there would be consequences. Not as terrible as the ones Kurt would face, that was certain, it was always going to be worse for Kurt, but he was sure to feel Gavin's wrath in some way.

"Then why is your hand not on his cock?" Gavin snapped.

"So sorry, Your Grace." The hand came back immediately, but not as tight, not as fast as before. Unfortunately, Kurt was scared now, and his dick's standard reaction to fear more than made up the difference. It throbbed and writhed against the valet's grip and spouted more slick, which was absorbed into the leather of the glove. The dampness made the slide even rougher, catching in all the wrong sensitive places. Kurt stared at the shadows dancing on the ceiling and tried to stay in control but the heavy need in his balls sent pleasure rolling through his body in waves that seemed destined to peak and crest.

"Please master," he begged, and he didn't have to fake the tremble in his voice this time. "I'm so close, please."

The only response was a long slurp from the glass of whiskey.

It was hard to believe that the hot desire in Kurt's dick and balls could coexist with the ice cold dread that filled his belly. But the need wouldn't be extinguished. Reginald's hand, even as slowly as it was moving now, was a gorgeous torment. Kurt clenched his teeth and tried to clamp down on his yearning flesh. He couldn't come. He wouldn't come.

But suddenly it was _there_, a heavy vortex spinning out from his balls to encompass his whole body, and he could see the orgasm at its heart, he could feel it looming only strokes away. The hand, the hand wouldn't stop no matter what he did, he was going to come, he was going to come without permission. It didn't matter whether he wanted it or not, his body craved it and the closer it came the louder his body screamed at him to give up, let go, finally let the ecstasy that was always just out of reach crest over him, possess him, release him. All it would take was the tiniest moment of surrender. It was inevitable. And in its swelling promise Kurt had to struggle to remember why the fuck he was fighting it back.

Because the punishment for coming without permission was the dog.

Kurt abandoned form and obedience and all the rules he'd been taught and cringed away from Reginald's hand as best he could in his contorted position. "Please master," he babbled, "Please, I can't, I don't want to disobey you, I can't stop it, gods, I can't, please . . ."

The hand disappeared again.

Kurt didn't even try to control himself. An involuntary cry tore through this throat and his hips fucked spasmodically into the air, over and over again, mindless and desperate to bring back the slowly retreating orgasm. In its wake his balls spasmed with sharp, agonizing pain that made him want to weep and scream, but he ground his teeth together and held it in, collapsing awkwardly, legs still twisted under him. He lay panting on the carpet, his eyes closed, overwhelmed by sensation and need and humiliation and fear.

Another slow slurp from the glass. Then, "Well that was fun."

For a long moment the only sound in the room was Kurt's hitched gasping. Finally Reginald cleared his throat with a tiny, tentative cough. "Shall I . . . go and prepare Your Grace's bedchamber for the evening?"

Even in his state, Kurt could remember that Reginald had already prepared the bedroom. He hated the valet, but he couldn't blame him for wanting to escape the uncertain and possibly dangerous turn the evening had taken. Gavin must have given silent permission because Kurt opened his eyes just in time to see Reginald scramble toward the door. When he was gone, Kurt turned his head back to stare at the ceiling, trying to relax his face back into its mask of passivity and drag his breathing under control. _Forestitch, backstitch, wavestitch, prickstitch . . ._

The leather of the chair squeaked as Gavin pushed out of it. He clucked his tongue in an exaggerated _tsk, tsk_ sound and ambled over to the side table where Reginald had left the decanter of whiskey. "Well, slut? Don't you have something you need to say to me?"

Kurt struggled up off the floor and onto his knees. Gavin was refilling his tumbler; Kurt could see the golden liquid sloshing unsteadily against the glass. Of course the duke was going to make the most of the situation. _Fuck you,_ Kurt thought. Silent rebellion helped him focus.

"Thank you, master. I'm so grateful for your mercy." It was dramatic, but the way this night was going Kurt figured a little overkill couldn't hurt.

Gavin just stood by the table, drinking his whiskey and studying Kurt. At least Kurt assumed that's what he was doing. Kurt didn't dare raise his eyes higher than Gavin's waist, where the bulge of his erection was a prominent peak under his velvet breeches. That was good. Gavin's hard on was familiar. Kurt could do something about it.

But Gavin didn't make a move or signal Kurt forward to serve him. The silence continued, oppressive; Kurt had to suppress the desire to fidget against it. "I only ever want to be obedient to you, master," he tried again, just in case Gavin was waiting for more.

"Very prettily said," Gavin drew out the words as he spoke, "but that wasn't the kind of thanking I had in mind."

So this _was_ all about a blow job. Thank the gods. Kurt lifted himself higher on his aching knees, trying to ignore the vulgar way his cock thrust up, still hard as stone. He lifted his head into position and held his throat open, prepared, because Gavin loved to try to take him unawares with his first thrust. Gagging, of course, was punished.

But still Gavin didn't move, didn't unlace his breeches and brandish his dick like a trophy in his usual manner. Instead, he picked up the decanter of whiskey and carried it over to yet another armchair, this one deeper, upholstered in heavily brocaded fabric. He settled into it like a king taking his throne, set the decanter on the table beside it, and spread his legs wide before turning his attention back to Kurt.

"I think we'll do it this way tonight."

"Of course, master." Kurt stood, and had to suppress a wince as the movement jostled his tender balls and stretched the overworked muscles around his knees. He took his time making his way to the new chair, letting his muscles loosen as much as he could before he had to pull them back into position again. He was still apprehensive. It seemed too easy. He'd rather be face-fucked – it was cleaner, with no illusion that he was making a choice to participate. But still, it was only a blow job. There had to be a catch, he just couldn't see what it was.

He reached for the ribbons that held Gavin's breeches closed, pulled out the bow and unlaced them, and then performed the same routine on the rougher strings of the duke's underclothes. Gavin's cock sprang out from the layers of fabric, stiff and fat and eager as ever. _Fuck you,_ Kurt told it silently.

It was another irony that, for a word that had become such a crucial part of his internal vocabulary, Kurt had said "fuck" out loud exactly once in his life. On the day he woke up from a drugged sleep, not in his warm bed in the garret but naked on a cold stone floor carpeted in a thin layer of straw, with two men barking orders at him and pulling him to his feet. Frightened and disoriented, he'd instinctively cupped his hands protectively over his genitals. One of the men had ordered him to put them behind his back and, desperately, without really thinking, he'd shouted it, _fuck you_, and had been backhanded for his trouble. Then, almost before he could register the tang of blood in his mouth, a hand had gripped his balls and squeezed, hard, until his legs collapsed out from under him and he was left retching helplessly into the straw. After that, Kurt had learned to keep his rebellion silent.

By now _fuck you_ was his automatic reaction when faced with the source of all that was terrible in his life. Gavin's cock. The enforced center of Kurt's existence. He stared it down. _Fuck you to the heart of the Render's void and back again._

"May I serve you, master?" Kurt was required to ask before he touched Gavin's precious cock.

"Get to it," the duke replied, and Kurt could smell the reek of alcohol when he spoke.

Kurt leaned forward – and realized immediately what the catch was. The chair was just deep enough that he couldn't get his mouth around the duke's erection without pressing his body, and his eager cock, against the rough fabric. Every motion of his head rocked his body into the chair with a pressure that he knew would inevitably lead him right back to the orgasm he'd just narrowly avoided.

He shifted this way and that, pulled his knees back as far as he could, and at last found a position that left only the tip of his cock brushing the coarse fibers of the upholstery. It was a strange sensation, part irritation, part tease, but Kurt was pretty sure it wouldn't be enough to actually make him come. He resolved to ignore it and applied himself to pulling the duke's dick into his throat and sucking hard, grateful that at least Gavin didn't like to linger over his eruptions.

A hand came down hard on the back of Kurt's head, impaling him with Gavin's cock deep in his throat. "Take your time, slut," he said, slurring a little around the consonants. "And stop fidgeting."

Kurt forced himself to go slack and still in silent acknowledgement, but the hand stayed in place until his lungs started to burn and his throat spasmed around the invading flesh. When Gavin finally released him he gasped, barely managing to suppress a cough, and went to work again, slowly this time.

He had no idea how long it took Gavin to come. He licked and sucked, mouthed with his lips and teased with his tongue, and as he moved the constant gentle scritch of the fabric against the head of his cock went from teasing to maddening to a completely new kind of torture. It was like an itch that he couldn't scratch, but an itch that also tantalized with mounting pleasure. It wasn't going to make him come; it was too rough on such a sensitive place for that, but it pushed him into an ever-mounting state of need, reminded him of every iota of frustrated release pent up under his skin. It quickly became all he could think about, and his hands clenched impotently against his thighs as he fought not to touch. He bobbed his head in a slow, steady rhythm around Gavin's hot cock, using every trick he knew to try to bring the duke to the edge. But the alcohol worked against him and every time he felt that it was close, and sped up as much as he dared to try to help the process along, Gavin would push him down again, choking him, forcing him back to that slow, frustrating, going-nowhere speed.

Eventually, the intensity of the constant friction on that one hyper-sensitized spot brought tears to Kurt's eyes and he began to pray to gods he didn't believe in to just let the fucking duke fucking come. He didn't know what he was being punished for, and he didn't care anymore. He just wanted it over. When Gavin finally stiffened and grunted and spilled his load in Kurt's mouth, Kurt almost cried with relief. He was defeated and exhausted and all he wanted was to go back to the room where he slept, soak his aching cock and balls in a bucket of cold water, and collapse into bed.

"Thank you, master," he said, as he was expected to. He made sure Gavin's cock was clean then tucked it back inside his clothes, lacing up both layers before moving back from the chair. At that exact moment the clock chimed – eight bells – and Kurt's heart sank. It was only eight o'clock. There was plenty of time for more.

But maybe someone actually heard his prayer, because the duke said, slurring even more than before, "You can go. I'll ring for you in the morning."

Kurt couldn't believe his luck, but this was the one strange occurrence in this whole bizarre evening that he wasn't going to question. "Thank you, master," he said sincerely, and he pressed his forehead to the ground in a brief prostration, just for good measure. Displays of submission always pleased Gavin. As he pushed back up he saw a dark stain spreading over the fabric of the chair where his cock must have leaked into it. He'd be punished for that, when it was discovered. He was too tired to care.

He rose to his feet, much less gracefully than usual and backed away toward the panel between the fireplace and his cushioned corner that hid a secret door into the servant's corridor. He felt his ass hit the wall, turned, and reached for the latch to spring the panel.

"Just one more thing, though."

Kurt froze. He was done, just done with this whole, strange, overwhelming night. And so close to his escape. He knew he should turn and kneel, but his body flatly refused to obey him any longer and so he stood, staring at the wall, longing for the safety of the hallway beyond, while Gavin got up and crossed the room. The smell of the whiskey reached him before the duke did.

"Look at me, slut."

Gavin had never, ever told Kurt to look at him. Kurt was always expressly required _not_ to look at him. Occasionally he'd be forced to, by a rough hand in his hair or on his jaw, when Gavin wanted to make some particular point. But never like this, face to face. He held his breath and turned.

His first inane thought was that the duke was shorter than him. It was absurd, under the circumstances, to even notice it but a kind of heavy fog was filling Kurt's brain and the fumes from the duke's breath were making his head swim and he felt a crazy desire to giggle. Gavin always seemed so _big_. Not fat, specifically, but more like a man who was powerful in his youth and now has gone soft and spreading with age. His eyes were dark, muddy and slightly unfocused from the drink. He was still angry, Kurt could tell, but there was something else in his expression too, something avid and intense that Kurt couldn't identify. Kurt was sure he should say something. He should acknowledge Gavin, maybe a _yes, master_, but right now, looking _down_ at the duke, he knew if he tried to speak he would laugh out loud. He wondered vaguely if this was the beginning of hysteria.

"I almost forgot," Gavin said, "you're going to have a visitor tonight."

Suddenly Kurt didn't feel like laughing at all. Images of Lady Montrose in her ice blue gown competed with Gavin's face before his eyes. Was this it? Was this what tonight had been about? Was he now going to turned over, tired and defenseless, to the woman who'd stripped away his pretense so easily at dinner this afternoon?

"I've been meeting with my steward this evening."

Kurt's mouth fell open, stupidly; he knew he should close it and try to pull himself back into some semblance of control, but he'd reached some kind of absolute limit and he couldn't. He had no idea what was going on. He couldn't follow the plot any more. He couldn't even try.

"He's done me a great service," Gavin went on slurring, as if Kurt wasn't gaping at him like a half-dead fish. "At my Greenway estate. A very great service. I wanted to repay him." The duke's lips pulled into a dark and predatory imitation of a smile. "A bonus, you could say, for going above and beyond the call of duty. I gave him his choice of rewards. Money, advancement, anything he wanted."

Something was happening inside of Kurt. And if he wasn't so tired and frightened and if his cock wasn't hard and his balls didn't hurt, he might have been able to sort something intelligible out of the tangle of words coming out of Gavin's mouth, more words than the duke had ever directed at him at one time. Something important was happening. This was all leading up to some horrible climax, something that made Gavin angry and gleeful at the same time. Something that made Gavin _look_ at him.

The duke slapped a hand against the wall next to Kurt's head, smiled wider when he flinched away from it, and leaned closer, so close that the skirt of his doublet brushed Kurt's cock and made it twitch. For one terrible moment Kurt thought Gavin was going to kiss him, but then the fleshy lips slid past his face to whisper hot and smelly in his ear.

"He chose you."


	4. Chapter Four

Kurt's mind went blank, wiped clean except for the single thought that he should probably be having some reaction to what Gavin had said, good or bad. But he simply couldn't summon anything up.

Gavin's face came back into Kurt's line of sight as he pulled away, not far – his hand still leaned into the wall next to Kurt – but enough that Kurt could see his head teeter drunkenly on his neck. His lips twisted into a sickly approximation of a smile.

"Oh don't worry. I'm not _giving_ you to him. No, he just wants to use you." The hand left the wall then and one finger poked unsteadily at Kurt's chest. "A little slut to call his own."

"But he's gone," Kurt whispered, forgetting to say _master_, forgetting everything except that Sebastian had most definitely left without saving him.

"What?" Gavin's brows came together in such an overblown expression of confusion that it would have been comical in any other situation. "Oh, no, that was just today. No, he's here for days and days." He punctuated the days with little pokes at Kurt's chest before turning and walking away, finally, weaving his way back to his whiskey tumbler and leaving Kurt to sag against the wall without the malevolent presence holding him up. "It's a big estate. So much to do." Gavin refilled the glass and waved it in Kurt's direction, his unfocused eyes and the golden liquid reflecting the lamplight in glinting shards. "And at the end of every long day, he's going to come to you." He stalked back toward Kurt again. "And the best part, the very best part," he was close enough now to reach out and grab Kurt's still hard, eternally hard, cock, "is that he's a proper deviant. The gods only know what he wants to do to you."

Gavin's hand was a crushing pressure that made Kurt wince and cringe against the wall, but still his cock swelled and throbbed against it, obedient, doing its best to appease its master. Kurt could feel the looming presence of panic as he stared into the duke's dark eyes. Gavin held his gaze and for just a moment the drunken bleariness cleared and his eyes focused sharply on Kurt; a predator, stalking its prey.

"I'm guessing you're about to learn all sorts of new tricks. What do you think?" Gavin held his eyes and his cock, pinning Kurt to the wall.

"Please," Kurt ventured breathlessly, "don't."

"Oh it's out of my hands now. It's done."

If Kurt expected that comment to be explained, he was disappointed. With one more squeeze of his cock, the moment of clarity ended and Gavin's gaze fuzzed again. He opened his hand and wandered away, aimlessly, around the room. "You're going to do exactly as he tells you," he intoned in a kind of singsong recitation. "You're going to serve him as you would me. You are going to make damned sure he enjoys his reward." He dropped into the wide leather chair where he'd started the evening and saluted Kurt with his glass. "I imagine he's on his way to your room right now. If I were you, I'd run."

Kurt ran.

The secret door latched closed behind him and he hurtled down the servant's corridor, feet slapping the bare stones, trying to stay one step ahead of the breaking wave of panic. He clutched his balls with one hand – humiliation be damned, the bouncing _hurt_. He ran, not to his room, but past it to the end of the hallway and the stairs down to the lower levels.

Perfect, he thought as he ran. Brilliant. Fantasize about the steward; that was completely safe. There was no way that could come back and bite him in the ass. Sebastian the savior: just the thing to entertain him in his boredom. Well he wasn't bored now, was he? Boredom was the very least of his problems now. He flew down the corridor so fast he set candles flickering in their sconces in his wake, but not fast enough to outrun the image of Sebastian – _reversed_ Sebastian – transformed from rescuing prince to just another asshole lusting after the naked boy who wasn't allowed to say no. Kurt was about to face the worst thing imaginable – the unknown – with his head spinning and his body throbbing and it was just as much thanks to his own stupidity as Gavin's unpredictable behavior.

But wasn't it possible, a renegade corner of his brain whispered, that this was part of the plan? It was smarter than trying to climb the castle wall, wasn't it? Kurt squashed that thought like a spider underfoot, violently, and without mercy. Hope was a killer. Hope would crush you faster and more thoroughly than any beating or punishment. A hope like that, proven false, could destroy him utterly.

He pounded down two flights of stairs, almost knocked into one incredulous servant making her way up, and rounded the corner into the spring room so fast that he had to grab the door jamb to keep himself from tripping over the page dozing just inside. The boy jumped to his feet, mumbling excuses, but when he realized who had woken him he flushed an ugly red and turned away. Anger flooded Kurt's body, chasing away even the looming fear. The boy couldn't have been more than fourteen. Shocked out of sleep by the duke's gasping, naked slave, sporting a fiercely upright erection and cradling his own balls in his hand. This, like everything else about Kurt's life, was so completely and utterly _wrong_ that he had an overwhelming desire to grab every bucket from the shelves lining the back wall of the room and smash them one by one against the stones.

Fortunately he had enough practice controlling that particular desire that, even in his current extremis, he was able to suppress it and get on with the business at hand. He had no time for propriety. He stepped past the boy, grabbed two of the banded wooden buckets, and shoved the first under the pipe that pumped spring water from deep underground. The icy water spilling over his hands was good. Its sting cleared his head and sharpened his purpose.

His mental composure was a lost cause. He was going to have to face whatever Sebastian wanted from him with no protective mask of detachment. But if he could get back to his room before the steward, at least he could use the cold water to freeze his body into submission. Icing his balls was part of his routine every night, to ease the pain and blunt the need, but tonight it was more crucial than ever. He couldn't afford to be on edge both emotionally and physically.

He filled both buckets halfway and flew right back out the door, past the mortified page still facing the wall, and up the stairs at a pace only slightly slowed by the water he was lugging. Two flights up again, down the hallway, third door on the right. He flung it open and the relief of finding the room empty made his head swim. No Sebastian. Yet.

When the door latched behind him he dropped the buckets and leaned against it to catch his breath and try to untie the knots in his stomach. Someone had already been in to light the fire and, together with the lamp on the low table next to the hearth, it cast flickering shadows on the walls and sparse furnishings: a simple bed against the far wall, the straight-backed chair beside its head, and, hidden more deeply in darkness, the washing alcove in the corner.

Mary the kitchen-keeper had pointed out more than once in Kurt's earshot that sluts were meant to sleep at the foot of their masters' beds, on the bare floor, and consider themselves lucky if they were given a blanket. Whether or not that was true, the current Duke of Eastreach had a paranoia about sleeping in the presence of others. No one, not even Reginald, was allowed to enter the suite in the morning until the duke rang. So despite the alleged tradition, Kurt had been assigned this room to sleep in. It was without a doubt the greatest of his few mercies.

The privacy it offered was mostly illusory. It had a door but no lock, and no one ever bothered to knock. Servants came and went at will, collecting linens or delivering meals and firewood, flinging the door open and slamming it closed with no concern for what he might be doing inside.

The room's previous occupant, he'd heard, had been a favored servant of Gavin's father, the old duke. The man had been dying from some kind of wasting disease. The features that made it an ideal sickroom also made it perfect for a slave who was kept always naked and had to be meticulous about cleanliness. The fireplace kept him warm and allowed him to heat water for bathing, and the ingenious washing alcove had a clay-tiled floor with a drain embedded in it to carry away waste water. It even had a window – something servants' quarters usually lacked – to bring fresh air to the patient and through which Kurt could sometimes lose himself in contemplating the stars at night and forget, for a brief time, the frightful reality of his situation.

And although people came and went with no concern for his privacy, once the fire was lit for the night Kurt could usually expect no visitors until his breakfast was delivered at daybreak. In the dark of the night, the room was the one place he could drop the mask and let himself be.

Except now it wasn't.

There wasn't much time, he chided himself, and he grabbed the chipped pottery basin from the table, set it on the floor, and hefted one of the buckets to pour cold water into the shallow bowl. Just the sound of the water splashing had his balls trying to crawl back into his body to escape the dunking they knew they were about to receive. Fortunately for them, but not so much for Kurt himself, two sharp raps from the other side of the door exploded into the quiet.

_Fuck_.

He shoved the bowl and buckets closer to the wall and jumped to his feet, backing away from the door until the backs of his knees hit the side of the mattress on the bed. It was happening too fast, too soon; his damn cock was still hard, his need still rough and edgy, his heart skipping in frantic rhythm that he could feel from his throat to deep in his belly. He wondered if he should kneel. Gavin had said _serve him as you would me_and Gavin always expected him to kneel. But just the thought of getting on his knees for this stranger made Kurt sick to his stomach. No. Anything Sebastian wanted, Sebastian was going to have to demand. Kurt wasn't going to offer.

Two more knocks broke the silence, sending Kurt's stomach lurching into his throat again. But then . . . nothing.

Kurt watched the firelight flicker on the dark wood of the door and wondered wildly if it could possibly be that simple. Could Sebastian be waiting to be invited in? Was he stupid enough to think that Kurt would just open the door to his tormentor? Could it be, Kurt thought for a giddy, hopeful moment, that lacking acknowledgement, he'd just give up and go away?

Apparently Kurt's luck didn't stretch quite that far, because the knob turned and the door began to arc slowly inward.

Frozen, almost hypnotized, Kurt held his breath and watched it move, dropping his eyes to the floor at the last possible second. He didn't want to face the reality of Sebastian Smythe any sooner than he had to. He didn't want to see lust and danger in the eyes that he'd imagined on his rescuer. So instead he saw feet. And legs. Feet in plain, scuffed boots. Legs in dark linen breeches. Feet and legs that turned just enough to close the door behind him then back again to point directly at Kurt. Sebastian – _Sebastian_ – was here and Kurt could not look. He would not look. Because despite himself, the tiny flame of hope was flickering again and if he met Sebastian's eyes and found nothing in them but desire he was afraid he might not survive it.

But as silence dragged on and no words of reassurance came, the flame sputtered and died inside him. Sebastian was just like all the others. Inflamed by Kurt's body, his apparent helplessness. He just needed to speak and the transformation from hero to villain would be complete.

Kurt stood silent and perfectly still, trying to pull together some semblance of calm in the face of the looming presence that filled the small space of his room. The only sound was their breathing, Sebastian's slow and steady, Kurt's faster, shuddery, no matter how hard he tried to control it. The longer he waited for his visitor to do something – anything – the more the disappointment and humiliation of it burned inside him; naked, hard, of course, under the steward's silent gaze, his cock putting on its usual show, so eager. Giving the impression that Kurt wanted . . . any of this. As the seconds dragged by the impulse to look up, or fall to his knees, anything to just get this terrible uncertainty over with, grew until it was almost overwhelming. Kurt crushed it ruthlessly, the effort tightening his hands into fists that he didn't bother trying to force open. He wasn't going to move and he wasn't going to look. He was exhausted and his nerves were frayed and he just wanted it to be over, but he refused to do anything to help this pervert in cheap clothes use him. He didn't know what the fuck Sebastian was waiting for, but he'd been told to follow orders and that was all he was going to do. His jaw clenched against the tension and his knees began to tremble, but his eyes stayed glued to the floor and the plain brown boots.

Suddenly the boots took two steps closer, only two, but the legs were so long that those two steps crossed the room and brought Sebastian so close that he filled Kurt's peripheral vision. So close that Kurt could _smell_ him: leather and soap and the familiar scent of homespun cloth.

And still he didn't speak. He made no move to touch Kurt, to lift his chin or reach for his dick. He stood as calmly as if he was inspecting a piece of furniture, not a living human being he planned to violate. He stood and waited, like this was a game, some kind of competition to see who would acknowledge whom first. Kurt's fists clenched tighter and his nails bit pain into his palms but he kept his head down, staring at the boots, trying to think only about the boots, dull boots that absorbed the light instead of reflecting it the way Gavin's shiny ones always did.

The thought of the duke brought Kurt back to his senses so fast that he had to suppress a gasp. What good would his reasoning do if Sebastian complained about him? He had no idea what the punishment would be for failing to be an adequate reward for the steward. He didn't want to know. Punishment was always going to be worse than anything Sebastian had in store for him. Just the thought scared Kurt enough that he finally surrendered and slowly, oh so slowly, raised his head.

The legs went on forever, then gave way to an equally endless torso in a simple, untucked white shirt, laced at the sleeves and, Kurt saw as his eyes continued upward, at the neck, where it opened onto smooth skin that seemed to glow in the lamplight. The sweep of neck was broken by a jut of larynx; Kurt focused on it and breathed once, in and out, before taking the final step in one quick motion and facing Sebastian.

The maids had been right. He was beautiful, in a sharp, angled way. He was younger than Kurt had expected, hardly older than Kurt himself, he guessed, and taller, with full lips and dark eyes that reflected the flickering light. It was too dark to make out their color but the intensity was obvious. He was staring at Kurt, pinning him with his eyes, with the avid anticipation that Kurt was used to seeing from people who coveted his body, but something else too. A question, or a challenge, Kurt wasn't sure exactly what it was that gave Sebastian's gaze something no one else's had ever had, but it was there. And then the soft lips tugged up at the corners into a ghost of a smile and one dark eyebrow lifted and suddenly Kurt knew exactly what Sebastian was thinking.

_That wasn't so hard, was it?_

Kurt really hoped his _fuck off and die_ was just as eloquent. From the way Sebastian's smile widened into an unmistakably predatory grin, he suspected it was.

Kurt recalled what Mary had said – _conceit to spare, above his station_ – and he understood now exactly what she'd meant. Sebastian held more space in the room than he actually took up. He had an air of someone who expected to be noticed, and his simple clothes almost seemed finer because of the way he stood in them. That kind of crafting of illusion was something Kurt had experience with himself, but he shoved that thought away. He was done identifying with Sebastian Smythe.

And still he didn't speak. Was this all Sebastian had come here for, Kurt wondered. To look at him? To have silent conversations with his eyes? Was there something Kurt was supposed to be doing? Maybe Sebastian was waiting for Kurt to fall to his knees and suck his cock. And maybe he should, but somewhere in this strange night Kurt had reached a breaking point. If Sebastian wanted something, Sebastian could damn well ask for it.

And as if Sebastian had read Kurt's very thoughts, the challenging eyebrow arched again and the enigmatic gaze flickered up to a point over Kurt's head.

Kurt didn't have to turn around to know that he was looking at the rope that hung from the high ceiling over his bed. The rope had been there when Kurt arrived at the castle; just a plain length of braided hemp tied off to a hook in the ceiling. The kind of thing that would help an aging invalid lever himself into and out of bed. He supposed it had been installed for the room's previous occupant and no one had ever come to remove it so there it had remained, hanging down to a short arm's length above the mattress.

It was as obvious as it could be that Sebastian wanted him to climb on the bed and hang onto the rope, but Kurt didn't move. He lifted his chin and stared back at Sebastian with as much strength and confidence as he could muster under the circumstances, issuing a challenge of his own. But Sebastian seemed just as determined to do this silently. His dark eyes narrowed and he tossed his head upward in the direction of the rope, a clear if unspoken order. Once again, the specter of Gavin reared its ugly head. If Sebastian told Gavin that Kurt had been disobedient, it didn't matter that no actual command had been spoken. Gavin was going to punish first and ask questions – not at all.

If looks could actually kill, Sebastian would have burned on the spot. As it was, he merely waited out Kurt's thought process, still with that infuriating smile. And Kurt knew he had no choice. He'd never had a choice. He gave Sebastian one last glare for good measure, turned and climbed onto the bed. He knelt facing the door, and, after a second pointed glance upward from Sebastian, stretched his arms up to grab the rough rope above his head, as close to where the hook tethered it to the ceiling as he could reach. The slack hung down in front of him just low enough to brush his cock where it stood up against his belly.

Sebastian stared up at him with hungry, bottomless eyes. It made Kurt feel even more exposed than usual, for some reason, being stretched out like this with his hands above his head. He felt helpless, as if he was tied to the ceiling instead of simply holding the rope. He was even more aware than usual of the vulnerability of his nipples, cock and balls, although Sebastian didn't even spare a glance for his body. He kept looking into Kurt's eyes, like he was trying to connect with him in some way Kurt couldn't fathom. Kurt pressed his lips together and very deliberately closed his eyes against Sebastian's attempts. Let the steward do what he wanted. Kurt would endure it silently and with perfect stillness. He wouldn't give Sebastian the satisfaction of any reaction. There was no connection between them; Kurt was a slave following orders. He wasn't going to let this idiot bumpkin pretend it was anything more than that.

_Fuck you,_ he chanted his familiar refrain. _Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you._

A loud, harsh sound startled Kurt so that his eyes flew open without authorization. Sebastian was dragging the wooden chair from its position by the head of the bed to a spot directly in front of Kurt. Before he sat, Sebastian reached out to Kurt and Kurt barely managed to control the urge to flinch away. But Sebastian only took hold of the loose end of the rope and moved it so that it hung behind Kurt instead of in front of him, brushing now at the curve of his ass. Then, still staring up at Kurt, he sat down, legs spread wide. Seated, with Kurt kneeling above him on the bed, he was almost exactly at eye level with Kurt's erection.

Then slowly, excruciatingly slowly, Sebastian leaned forward, closing the distance between his face and Kurt's body. Kurt watched him come, transfixed, caught in complete confusion as to what Sebastian could possibly mean to do. It wasn't until the soft lips parted and Sebastian's tongue slid into view that it hit him.

"Please!"

Kurt had sworn to remain silent, but nothing, not even his pride, especially not his pride, was more important than avoiding punishment. And if Sebastian actually meant to put his mouth on Kurt's cock, Kurt was going to come. He'd never been touched that way. He'd dreamed of being touched that way. And after all that he'd been through today his body was tight as a wire and ready to erupt with the slightest encouragement.

Sebastian leaned away and looked up at Kurt again, clearly pleased with himself – more than that, triumphant. He knew he'd won whatever little battle they'd been silently fighting. Kurt's dick expressed its disappointment with a single flexing throb. But even in victory Sebastian didn't speak. He lifted that infernal eyebrow again, questioning.

Kurt hated himself, but he couldn't risk it. "I'm not allowed to . . ." His face burned and the fire suddenly seemed too hot oppressive in the little room. He struggled to find the right words. To ask without pleading. "I can't disobey."

"Please . . .?" Sebastian prompted, speaking at last. Just the one word, softly, leading Kurt.

Kurt thought about closing his eyes and refusing to speak again, whatever the consequences. Then he thought about the dog.

"Please don't make me come," he said, haltingly, hating Sebastian for making him beg.

The little smirk came back, approving, and the eyebrow quirked up yet again. "I wasn't planning to," he said, as if that should have been perfectly obvious.

Hatred burned in Kurt's heart almost as hot as the excitement that burned in his cock as Sebastian again leaned forward with parted lips. He closed his eyes again, not out of stubbornness this time, but because he didn't think he could bear to watch.

A wet heat that could only be Sebastian's tongue pressed against the base of Kurt's cock and dragged upward and before it reached the tip Kurt knew he was in big, big trouble. It wasn't even a matter of having been edged three times that day, or that his usual emotional safeguards were in tatters. There was no defense that could have stood against the sensation of that wet tongue on his yearning flesh. The soft slide along his shaft was bliss and there weren't words to describe the feeling of it flicking the sensitive spot just below the head, then teasing up and over the crown in a silken sweep of pleasure. Kurt pressed his lips together so tightly they hurt, biting down on the sound that wanted to escape. He tried to force his brain into his _fuck you_ chant, but his body was done being drowned out. As the burning tongue retreated to a tiny point brushing intimately, powerfully into his slit then lifting away, his hips, completely beyond his conscious control, pushed forward in pure, abject begging for more.

Kurt had never experience anything like it. Pleasure and pain were always intertwined for him, and that was good, he was grateful for the rough way Reginald handled him. It helped him stay detached in control. But this – this was so much more cruel than anything Gavin's valet might do with his leather glove. He'd almost given up control earlier despite the pain – how was he supposed to resist Sebastian's wicked tongue? He gripped the coarse rope so tightly that his fingers ached and bit his lips to keep himself silent.

But then Sebastian's soft mouth closed around the crown of Kurt's cock and _sucked,_ and the moan wouldn't be suppressed. It broke free and filled the room with the essence of Kurt's frustrated desire. The tongue drew searing shapes over his swollen head, gathering up slick as it went, and Kurt knew he should try to pull away or even beg Sebastian to stop if that was what it was going to take, but he didn't have the strength anymore. He'd dreamed of this, since his earliest adolescence, of beautiful men doing delicious things to his body to make him writhe and moan, and although he knew in his head that this was a perversion, a mockery of those fantasies, his body did not care. It only wanted more of the silken promise of Sebastian's mouth and the revelation of the feathery brushes of tongue. His body screamed at him to let go, give up, _feel_, and his tired vulnerable brain was losing the will to fight.

The moment of surrender came with a hand, warm and gentle, cupping his engorged scrotum even as the lips teasing the head of his cock slid down further, deeper, sucking Kurt's length into the hot cavern of the mouth. Sebastian's fingers toyed with him, rolling his balls ever so gently against each other inside their sac, and the dizzying pleasure began to build to its inevitable, beautiful breaking point.

"Oh please," he murmured, and under pain of death he couldn't have said whether he was begging for or against, "I'm so close."

The hand on his balls disappeared. The mouth stopped moving, but it didn't retreat. Perfectly still, it held his cock, resting between the soft wet tongue and the hard arched palate. It was just enough stimulation to keep the orgasm Kurt now unashamedly craved right there, boiling through his balls. All it would take was a choice, and a few short thrusts, and gods, Kurt wanted it more than he could ever remember wanting anything. He longed to know what it would feel like to come inside the hot perfection of Sebastian's mouth, to spill down his throat and feel that gorgeous suction again pulling each shuddering paroxysm from his body. It was that thought, after the gods knew how many weeks of denial, which completely broke him. He pulled back to make the fateful thrust, but as his cock slid sweetly out over Sebastian's lips, Sebastian's lips kept moving, away, gone, leaving Kurt suddenly and desperately bereft, rutting at nothing, fingers cramping tight against the rope fibers and tiny animal noises of denial escaping his throat.

He practically hung from the rope, overwhelmed by conflicting sensations and unfamiliar emotions. He had no idea how long it was before the burning that had taken over his body finally began to recede, and with it the despair of the lost pleasure that had been so close. In its place came shame and anger, at Sebastian but even more at himself, for surrendering everything that mattered to him so easily, with just the brush of a gentle tongue. With a touch, Sebastian had overcome him and even in his exhausted, vulnerable state it shouldn't have happened. The things Kurt had lived through – the things he'd resisted – he was _strong_, damn it. He kept his walls in place and they never got inside his head. But he'd let Sebastian sweep all his defenses away in moments – because it felt good?

When he finally opened his eyes, there sat Sebastian, still in the chair, watching his face with the same hungry intensity.

"Well you did ask me not to make you come," Sebastian said. "I'm a man of my word." Then he spread his legs wider in a gesture Kurt had seen too many times to misinterpret.

"I need a minute," Kurt said, abandoning any pretense of being in control. His refusal to defer to Sebastian, even in his current state, was a meager victory . If there had been a battle, then Sebastian had won and they both knew it.

Sebastian inclined his head graciously, making Kurt grit his teeth at the hubris of it, and pushed the chair back from the bed with another grating slide over the stones.

Kurt closed his eyes again and counted as he breathed, until his gasping evened into long, slow inhales and exhales. When he was relatively sure that an accidental bump against the mattress wouldn't be enough to push him over the edge, he forced his hands to give up their hold on the rope above his head, opened his eyes, and, with Sebastian watching every move, climbed down from the bed to kneel obediently on the floor between the so-long legs. He kept his eyes down; he didn't want to see what effect his capitulation had on Sebastian. He could see the outline of Sebastian's erection under the dark linen and he reached for the strings that held the breeches closed.

At least this was simple, familiar. One cock to suck, and then odds were good Sebastian would leave him alone, at least for tonight. And maybe by tomorrow night Kurt would have had time to pull himself back together and face Sebastian with his defenses firmly intact. Just the thought spurred his fingers to attack the laces and pull both breeches and underclothes down far enough to free Sebastian's cock.

It was big. Bigger than Gavin's (although that wasn't much of a feat); bigger than Kurt's, although clearly just as eager. Well size didn't matter, not since his training. Kurt leaned closer, opened his mouth wide, and took it in one slide down to the root.

Sebastian's involuntary gasp gave Kurt his own moment of smug triumph. Of course he could take it all. His gag reflex had been the first thing they'd beaten out of him. Five strokes with the thick leather belt, which fell like the Render's fist and burned in its wake like hellfire; five for each sputter, cough or choke. After his training Kurt could have taken three of Sebastian. He slid his mouth up and almost off, then down again, sucking hard as he went, just to force Sebastian to make that incredulous noise again.

Once again Kurt remembered Gavin's words – _serve him as you do me_. Well Gavin liked it hard and fast and Kurt was sure what was good enough for the duke was good enough for his steward. He attacked the cock, pumping and sucking as if his life depended on it. Sebastian's long fingers curled around the seat of the chair and tightened like they were clinging to a lifeboat in stormy seas. His breath came sharp and broken by tiny sounds pulled from his throat against his will, and as Kurt dragged him closer to eruption the sounds escaped louder and more often until finally his hips thrust up and Kurt sank down and held himself there while Sebastian spilled down his throat with one sustained groan.

Kurt pulled off the softening dick with a pop and settled down on his knees, pushing himself back as far from Sebastian as he could, until his bare back pressed against the side of his mattress. He didn't do Sebastian the courtesy of closing his breeches; the soft cock splayed against them until Sebastian managed to unclench his hands from the chair and rearrange his own clothing. Kurt wanted to stand, but he didn't think he had the strength. He kept his eyes stubbornly on the floor, though. He wasn't going to look at Sebastian again.

"Well that was intense," Sebastian said, as if Kurt was waiting for a review, "although your technique could use a little work."

_Fuck you,_ Kurt thought, more for the principle of the thing than because he had any particular feeling about what Sebastian had said. Mostly he was just numb. That was probably a good thing.

Sebastian sat a moment longer, while Kurt struggled to keep himself upright. Exhaustion had reached a critical level. He felt drained and heavy and desperately wanted his bed. At last Sebastian rose, dragged the hard chair back to its place by the head of the bed, and made his way to the door. From Kurt's perspective he left as he'd arrived, just a pair of worn boots moving across the room. They didn't turn back at the door, and Sebastian didn't speak, he just slipped out and pulled the latch shut behind him.

Alone, finally, Kurt crumpled forward where he knelt, hands over his face. He wanted to cry but Kurt Hummel didn't cry anymore. Not unless they forced him to. He wanted to scream, but he'd be heard, he couldn't afford that. There was only one kind of release available to him, so he uncurled and crawled over to retrieve the bowl of water he'd shoved under the table. It wasn't as icy as when he'd collected it, but it was still cold enough to get the job done. He hefted himself up over it and sank down with a gasp, plunging his cringing balls and still half-hard dick into the sharp, quenching, expiating chill.


	5. Chapter Five

The next morning Kurt woke up slowly, teased to consciousness by the warm, bright sunlight on his face - a nice change from the usual wrench out of sleep by the slamming of the door as a surly servant deposited his breakfast with as much noise as possible. And yet, when he rolled over and opened his eyes, the tray was there, sitting covered on the little table, and the fire was built up from morning embers. A kettle of warm water rested on the hearth; he could see steam drifting up from its spout. And a pile of freshly-laundered washing rags was folded neatly next to the tray. He flung off his blanket, enjoying the fact that the morning chill had been chased away, for once, before he had to brave the room naked. He wondered if they'd given slut duty to someone new. Someone who hadn't yet figured out that he was supposed to be mortified at the thought of serving the duke's pet, and that he should make his displeasure known as loudly as possible.

Whatever the reason, Kurt was happy to take advantage of it. He'd slept well, the heavy, dreamless sleep of true exhaustion, and he felt stronger. Clearer. More ready to do battle with Sebastian than he'd been the night before. At least he did until he swung his legs over the side of the bed and set off a chain reaction of push and pull that made everything below his waist sing with pain. His balls were always tender, but after the workout his cock had gotten yesterday – he couldn't even remember if it had been three edgings or four – the muscles all around its base, his lower belly, and his inner thighs ached too. He groaned out loud as he levered himself onto his feet and found that he couldn't even walk normally. The three steps to his breakfast tray were tight and mincing.

At least his cock was only half hard, probably thanks to the soaking he'd given it before he went to sleep. He didn't want to know what it would feel like to get an erection in this state.

He pulled the cover off the pewter plate to find a thick slice of bread covered with melted cheese, and a ripe green pear. The bread was still warm, the aroma of the cheese mouth-watering, and Kurt brought the plate carefully back to his bed and pushed the window open so he could feel the spring breeze on his face as he ate. He glanced occasionally over his shoulder at the summons bell mounted on the wall next to the door, but it remained still and silent. It didn't worry him, though, that no one had rung for him. The duke wasn't an early riser in the best of circumstances and Kurt suspected that, after all the whiskey last night, today would be far from the best of anything for Gavin. He savored the idea of Gavin holed up in his dark bedchamber nursing his hangover, while he sat almost happily, with good food and sun and the chattering of washer-women hanging laundry in the side court under his window.

His mood rose even higher when, with a clatter of wheels over cobbles, an ornate carriage rolled into the slice of the entry courtyard visible between two wings of the castle. He could just make out an army of servants loading bags and boxes; Lord and Lady Montrose were taking their leave as promised. Although Lady Montrose had been demoted by Sebastian to the lesser of Kurt's present problems, seeing the back of her still gave him one less thing to worry about.

He sat and munched his pear and watched until the lady, resplendent in a red travelling gown, was handed into the carriage by her husband, who mounted his horse and led a small caravan of coaches and horsemen out through the main gate. Just before the carriage passed out of sight, Kurt could see Lady Montrose lean out her window, twisting back to take a last searching look at the castle. He drew back from the window, instinctively, though he told himself there was no way she could have spotted his face among the many facades and decorations that adorned the castle walls. Still, he breathed a sigh of relief when the caravan disappeared, safely on its way back to Concordia City.

Now Kurt had just one problem to deal with. And he had a plan.

He didn't know quite why he was so set on provoking Sebastian. The smart thing to do would have been to simply do as he was told and get through the week with as little difficulty as possible. But something about the steward demanded provocation. It was as if Sebastian had issued a challenge that Kurt couldn't bring himself to ignore. Maybe it was the months of capitulation and obedience finally catching up to him in some terribly self-destructive way – Kurt didn't know and, honestly, he didn't dare examine his motives closely enough to find out. He just knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't to whatever he could to obstruct Sebastian's will. His instinct for self-preservation, so finely honed by his captivity and enslavement, completely failed him where Sebastian was concerned. And the thought of rebelling, openly and defiantly, made him feel strong and in control. It made him feel like Kurt Hummel.

So tonight he would be ready. He would have his body under control and, more importantly, his mind would be clear and focused. There would be no moaning or pleading. When the arrogant steward arrived at Kurt's door he would find Kurt more than a match for him. All Kurt had to do, for the next twelve hours or so, was _not _think about that hot, wicked tongue. Although that might be easier said than done. Just the passing thought of Sebastian's tongue touching him so intimately, with such exquisite gentleness, had his cock perking up and his slit twitching and gaping like an invitation.

He tried to distract himself by making good use of the warm water and soft cleansing rags that had been left on his table. He scrubbed every inch of his skin twice over, until it was tingling from the combination of strong lye soap and vigorous exfoliation. But every movement tugged at his tight muscles and reminded him of why they were sore. And although there were several edgings that could be blamed for his current state, his mind stubbornly insisted on dwelling on the last: Sebastian and his teasing, sensuous tongue.

Still, Kurt did his best. He stretched out the stiffness, ruthlessly; he was no stranger to coping with pain. As his muscles loosened he turned his attention to other parts of his body. He refused to use the harsh soap on his face – he could feel his skin drying up at just the thought – so a good rub with the wet rag had to suffice. He would have given almost anything for a cake of his mother's gentle homemade soap. He knew his skin should be the least of his concerns, but maintaining his standards was another thing that made him feel more like himself.

As he washed he checked all the appropriate places for stubble and counted it another point in favor of this day that he found none. That was a mercy too – his slow-growing body hair. He was required to be shaved, cheeks to ankles, at all times. As he wasn't allowed a razor, this service was performed by the duke's barber and Kurt hated submitting to it. The barber was one of the few people who seemed actually sympathetic to Kurt's plight, and while Kurt appreciated his empathy, being forced to shave the most intimate body parts of the duke's slut made the man nervous and chattery. Nervous and chattery with a straight razor pressed to those intimate parts. And it didn't help that Kurt's cock never failed to go rigid as the barber moved it around to shave his balls and belly. In fact, the gentler the man tried to be, the more arousing it became for Kurt. More than once he'd had to ask the man to stop when the stimulation became too much, and he couldn't have said which of them was more mortified by the situation.

But today, thank the gods, he remained perfectly smooth. He cleared away the washing mess, folding the used cloths neatly and emptying his buckets of water down the drain in the floor, and he was just settling the domed lid back on top of his breakfast plate when the bell on the wall chimed in summons.

At least, after all the stretching, he was able to walk almost normally. The servants corridor was busier than it had been last night, but most of the maids and pages going to and fro were too immersed in their own duties, or perhaps too used to seeing the slut walking around in the nude by now, to pay much attention to Kurt. The secret entrance to Gavin's apartment was only across the hall and three doors up and Kurt slipped quietly through it and into the sitting room.

The suite was dim, the draperies all drawn against the mid-morning light. It was empty as well, but as he was arranging himself on the silken pillows in his corner by the fire the door to Gavin's bedchamber opened, very slowly, and Reginald tiptoed carefully out. The valet tended toward the dramatic, which Kurt usually found annoyingly affected, but after the strangeness of the duke's behavior last night even Kurt could forgive his exaggerated care.

Reginald didn't speak to Kurt – he never did if he could help it – but it was obvious from the way he silently eased the door closed that Gavin wouldn't be making an appearance anytime soon. Kurt almost bounced with glee. Everything was aligning perfectly today. No Gavin meant no morning edging or blow job, nothing to ruffle his careful composure. All he had to do was stay focused and he was home free.

He shifted off his knees to a more comfortable position and was settling in for the long wait, planning out the next stages of the bodice pleating on Eloise the blacksmith's daughter's imaginary wedding gown, when he noticed Reginald lingering, eyes darting aimlessly around the room as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. Kurt glanced guiltily at the chair where he'd blown Gavin the night before. The stain from his slick could be seen even in the little bit of light that managed to peek through the cracks where the draperies met the walls. Was there some punishment waiting for him already? Had Gavin given orders before he'd passed out? Kurt held his breath, but Reginald only stood for a moment longer then took two indecisive steps closer to Kurt's corner of the room.

He was holding something, Kurt realized. The brocaded doublet Gavin had been wearing the night before. And his etched ebony sewing box.

It was only with the utmost exertion of will that Kurt managed to move no muscle and make no sound. No one watching would have suspected how his heart began to race, or how his fingers prickled with desire. With superhuman effort he remained the picture of perfect composure as the valet took another step closer, and another, until he finally deposited both garment and box on a footstool nearby and retreated across the room. As he disappeared into the dining room he pulled one of the draperies aside just far enough to flood Kurt's corner with sunlight.

Kurt stared hungrily at the mound on the little stool and slowly counted to ten. Just to be safe.

The first time had been an accident. A mistake, really, on Kurt's part. The kind of loss of control that could have been disastrous. A cold winter afternoon just two months into his tenure in the castle. Kurt had been kneeling in his corner as usual; Reginald was in the bedchamber preparing the duke for an outing. His Grace was in high dudgeon, banging around the room and cursing so creatively that Kurt had felt grateful, that afternoon, that his title was slut and not valet.

"Leave it and get the yellow one, idiot!" And with a suddenness that made Kurt startle, a heavy cloak of royal blue had come flying through the door to land on the sitting room floor, followed by a black box that had narrowly missed Kurt before rebounding off the wall and spilling its contents all over the parquet.

Needles. Packets of needles and tiny spools of jewel-toned thread and leather thimbles and Kurt had had to hide his clenched fists in the cushions as Gavin emerged, resplendent in yellow, followed closely by an obsequious Reginald. They both swept out of the suite and were gone before the last spool stopped spinning across the floor.

Thus had commenced what had felt like the longest hour of Kurt's life. He could see from where he knelt that the cloak had been torn, a ragged gash that followed no seam, and the valet's attempt to repair it had been laughably inadequate. He knew he shouldn't touch it. He fought as hard as he could against the temptation; he counted breaths and chanted stitches but it was no good. The opportunity to hold a needle in his fingers again, to remind himself of who and what he really was, had proven irresistible. He _needed_ it, in that moment, more than air. When he'd finally broken it had been in a rush, scrambling over to pull the cloak into his lap, fumbling for a thimble, and before he was really even aware of what he was doing he'd folded himself into the familiar position he'd always taken at Master Neric's board and had Reginald's ugly stitches half picked out.

The valet had returned to the suite before the duke, thank the gods. Kurt, after finishing a perfect repair, had replaced everything exactly as it had fallen, but of course the change in the cloak was obvious. Reginald, however, had simply swept up the cloak and gathered the fallen bits of the sewing kit and retreated to the duke's closet without a word.

After a few days on pins and needles, expecting accusations and punishment at any moment, Kurt had overheard Gavin ask for the blue cloak, and remarked on the new repair.. And with Reginald's "I always want to do my best for you, You Grace," Kurt knew he was safe.

And after that, from time to time, carefully chosen times when the duke could be expected to be away for several hours, Reginald would wordlessly deposit items from Gavin's wardrobe on the little footstool and disappear. Every time Kurt tried to resist and every time he failed. He hated that he'd given Reginald even a glimpse into who he really was, even if he was reasonably sure the valet wouldn't be able to expose him without getting himself into trouble as well. But he had to take the risk. The relief of holding a needle again was so intense that sometimes it brought tears to his eyes.

And today, Kurt didn't even hesitate. He snatched up the doublet eagerly, trusting that Reginald wouldn't have given it to him if he wasn't sure the duke was safely indisposed. Today of all days, when he needed both distraction and composure, the chance to lose himself in actual sewing was a gift from the gods. If he kept having this kind of luck, Kurt thought as he threaded a needle with sky-blue silk, he might even have to reexamine his stance on their existence.

It was perfect. So very perfect. By the time the doublet had been repaired with tiny, invisible stitches, Kurt's calm was so complete that he barely startled when a knock on the door from the public hallway broke the silence. The doublet was already folded back on the stool, sewing box sitting next to it. Reginald appeared from the dining room and hurried down the hallway. Voices drifted back to Kurt and he realized that it must be Sebastian, come to meet with Gavin for more accounting. Sebastian's self-assured tones brought back images of the night before and stirred in Kurt's belly but he breathed deeply and conjured up the feeling of the needle in his fingers. The voices rose until Kurt could hear them – Sebastian was insisting on being admitted despite Reginald's protests that the duke was unwell – but Kurt's pulse never quickened, not even when a double door-slam indicated that Sebastian had won the argument and been admitted to the room next door. Reginald returned to claim the doublet, muttering to himself about people who put on airs, and Kurt permitted himself a tiny smile once the valet's back was turned. He was ready.

Gavin eventually appeared, well after noon, but he neither looked at nor spoke to Kurt. He spent quite a long time in his washroom, made a brief visit to the study, then returned to the quiet of his bedchamber. Dinner was brought for Kurt, then supper. Sebastian finished whatever work he was doing and left and Kurt, immersed in his head in laying out the voluminous skirt pieces of Eloise's dress, barely noticed. And in a final stroke of glorious luck, as darkness fell and Reginald began lighting the lamps, two giggling maids appeared at the servants entrance – the duke's entertainment for the evening. Reginald ushered them into the bedchamber then emerged and caught Kurt's eye just long enough to toss his head in the direction of the hidden door. The meaning was clear. _Dismissed_.

No doubt about it, Kurt thought. The gods were real. And today they were smiling on Kurt Hummel.

He didn't run this time. He didn't need to hurry and didn't want to risk panic ruffling the calm waters of his self-control. He passed no one on the stairs. There was no sleeping page boy to surprise and be surprised by him. He filled two buckets with the gushing spring water and carried them carefully back up the steps, down the hall to his room, through the door. He didn't pause but went straight for the chipped bowl, set it on the floor and poured the freezing water right up to the rim. There was no mercy for his cringing balls tonight. He plunged into the water until his cock was submerged to the root, gasping as the intensity of the icy cold stole his breath away. One hand closed around the iron frame of his bed but he forced himself to stay still. It hurt like he couldn't remember anything hurting before, so much that he shuddered with the force of it, sending water sloshing over the stones of the floor and making him gasp yet again when the spill reached his bare feet. Pain thickened in his belly and splintered down his legs but he kept to his crouch, all the important parts submerged, until the pain gave way and his flesh succumbed to creeping numbness. Then, just to be sure, he dumped the contents of the basin down the drain, refilled it with fresh water from the bucket, and dunked again. When he finally stood up his legs were trembling but he knew one thing for certain. There was no tongue in the realm that would be able to rouse his cock tonight.

With grim satisfaction, Kurt emptied the second bowlful and replaced it on the table, his cock and balls like blocks of ice against his thighs as he moved, then went to stand by his bed, facing the door, to wait.

He didn't have to wait long. Sebastian's knock rang out almost as soon as Kurt was in position. Just one knock tonight, then the doorknob turned and the door creaked open.

He was dressed exactly as he had been the night before: homespun breeches, a simple shirt, and the dark, dull boots. Kurt didn't lower his eyes tonight, he watched, wanting to savor the moment that Sebastian realized he'd been thwarted. He felt almost eager as Sebastian swept into the room as if he owned it, and he knew he probably shouldn't be so openly defiant but he couldn't help it. He was proud of himself. He'd taken action against being used and he didn't even care what the consequences might be. It felt good. It felt right. He actually had to hold back a smile as Sebastian closed the door and crossed the room to him, looking him up and down with those dark eyes. He waited, holding his breath, for the reaction.

But if Sebastian was disappointed by what he saw, he didn't show it. The flickering firelight cast shadows across his chest as he scanned the room, taking in the half-empty buckets, the basin, the dark stains where water had spilled on the floor. And coming to rest finally on Kurt, raking down his body to his soft genitals. Kurt tensed as he reached out a hand, but his fingers were gentle as he cupped Kurt's cock and balls. At least, Kurt assumed they were gentle. He was too numb to actually feel even the slightest warmth.

Sebastian hummed a little, almost too low for Kurt to hear, close as he was. Then he smiled as if Kurt had done something wonderful.

"That must have hurt like fuck," he said, casually, like they were friends discussing some crazy accident that had befallen Kurt. "I'm impressed. I don't think I would have have had the balls to do it." He laughed a little at his own joke. "But if you were trying to piss me off you're going to have to do better than that."

Kurt's confusion must have shown on his face because Sebastian, still holding his privates, still smiling, said, "Do I strike you as the kind of man who doesn't enjoy a challenge?" He laughed again, low, provocative, and his hand gave Kurt's balls a squeeze that hurt on the inside, even though Kurt couldn't feel a thing from the outside. It was a strange, backward sensation and Kurt had to push away a flicker of doubt that the intensity in Sebastian's eyes only fed.

Sebastian let go of Kurt's cock and circled around him, slowly, trailing one hand along Kurt's body as he moved. "I have to say, you are turning out to be everything I'd hoped you would be. You couldn't be more perfect if you tried."

Kurt realized his mouth was hanging open and he knew he should shut it – he was still in control; nothing about tonight had hinged on Sebastian's reaction, he reminded himself, it was all about his own lack of reaction – but his body refused to obey him. Sebastian came full circle to stand before him again and his smile only widened at Kurt's discomfiture.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Am I ruining your plans to thwart me? Was I supposed to be angry, maybe throw things? Is that what you wanted?" He touched Kurt's chin with one finger and pushed his mouth closed. "It's not your fault, really. It's me. I've never been very good at meeting the expectations of others. My mother's sure I'll never amount to anything because of it."

The path Sebastian's hand had traced along Kurt's body glowed with warmth and his eyes sparkled in the lamplight. He was enjoying this, Kurt realized. It was all just a game to Sebastian. He was so assured of his eventual victory that Kurt's show of defiance was hardly worth noticing. Kurt pressed his lips together and tightened his resolve. Nothing Sebastian did or thought mattered. He was still in control of himself, just as much as he had been before Sebastian had walked in.

"The question is," Sebastian continued, dropping his finger from Kurt's chin but still standing so close that Kurt could feel heat radiating from his skin, "what are we going to do now that you've taken all the fun parts out of play? I had so many plans for that cock . . ."

Something that felt uncomfortably like want twinged in Kurt's belly at that, and at the implications in Sebastian's eyes when he said it, but Kurt pushed it away.

"I suppose I'm just going to have to find something else to play with," Sebastian sighed. His tongue slid over his full bottom lip as he considered Kurt's naked form, and Kurt steeled himself for whatever might come next. He held his breath as Sebastian took another turn around him, evaluating him with those eyes that seemed so black and bottomless in the darkness of the room. He stood tall and straight under Sebastian's gaze, unwavering and determined.

Sebastian finally moved, reaching out one long-fingered hand that fell firmly, heavily on Kurt's shoulder.

His shoulder? Kurt forced his eyes to keep staring straight ahead and not look at the hand that cupped the curve of the joint, then slid down Kurt's arm to the elbow and back up again, rubbing like . . . like a friend would offer comfort, Kurt thought, or at least like what he imagined a friend offering comfort would feel like, if he'd ever had any friends in Pluna who were willing to touch him like this. Sebastian's warm palm moved casually; there was nothing titillating about the sensation but the breath began to stutter in and out of Kurt's throat anyhow. He'd been pulled, poked, probed and stimulated in a million ways in the course of his enslavement, but he was never touched, not like this, not here and not before, at home, where people shied away from him as if he was carrying some disease they were afraid of catching.

Kurt's throat tightened but he held still and breathed.

The hand stopped moving and again Sebastian circled Kurt, stopping behind him and resting a hand on each shoulder, a firm but gentle grip, pressing in a little, like Master Neric correcting Kurt's posture, like his father pushing him forward as he hesitated outside the door of the tailor shop for the first time, trembling with fear and excitement . . .

"What are you doing?" Kurt had to force the words past the thickening lump in his throat and the bitter knowledge that Sebastian had once again unerringly targeted the cracks his resolve.

Sebastian, ignoring him, began to caress Kurt's back. His hands slipped slowly down to Kurt's waist and up again, stopping just short of his ass, stroking, over and over. Up and down. The gentleness of it was so sudden, so different from the rest of Kurt's interactions with Sebastian, the slow rhythm almost hypnotic. He had never been touched like this. He had dreamed of being touched like this and as it went on Kurt felt his body start to relax and it almost seemed possible to lean back into the man behind him, let those arms wrap around his waist, be held . . .

"Stop," Kurt choked. "Just . . . stop."

Sebastian stopped. He took his hands away completely and although part of Kurt longed to have them back again, he quickly strangled that part into silence. His mask of composure was firmly back in place by the time Sebastian moved around to stand in front of him once more. But Sebastian's expression was completely new. He stared, dark eyes probing into the depths of Kurt's as if he was seeing him for the very first time. As if he was trying to understand him, as a person. As if he was really trying to _see_ him. And maybe it was because of that that Kurt heard himself say, boldly, as if he had any choice in the matter, "I don't want you to touch me like that."

One eyebrow lifted in the way that was already becoming familiar to Kurt. "You just keep getting more and more interesting. You didn't say anything about my mouth on your dick yesterday, but this you can't stand?"

Kurt held his ground, held Sebastian's gaze, and waited, putting everything he had into looking confident and determined. Because if Sebastian kept touching him like that, like a friend offering consolation and support, he was going to cry and Kurt Hummel didn't cry. Not anymore.

"Is that what you came here for?" he demanded. "To rub my back?"

"That is most definitely not what I came here for. But I can't do what I came here for. Thanks to you." Sebastian said, and Kurt could have sworn he saw a smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

"You said you liked a challenge."

"I did say that, didn't I?" Sebastian pulled his eyebrows together as he studied Kurt, an exaggerated expression of exasperation that the smirk he couldn't quite hold back belied. "All right then. If touching is out of the question, how about we talk?"

"Talk?" Kurt asked, his voice breathy with disbelief. Had he actually won?

Sebastian grabbed the straight-backed chair by the bed and placed it with a bang directly in front of Kurt. "Talk. I need to figure you out. So I'll ask questions and as long as you answer them, I won't touch you in any threateningly non-sexual way."

He was mocking, but Kurt was too relieved to take offense. He watched Sebastian sit and cross one leg over the other, looking for all the world like a king taking a throne. A small and dingy throne, but the imperious air more than made up for the lack of proper furniture. It also put the power imbalance firmly back in place – Sebastian relaxing while Kurt stood before him naked – and Kurt toyed with the idea of just plopping himself down on the bed. But in all honesty, he felt stronger on his feet, ready to move if he needed to. And he was pretty sure he'd already pushed Sebastian farther than he should have. So he stayed put and waited for Sebastian to speak.

"First question. Where do come from?" Sebastian finally asked, and Kurt breathed yet another sigh of relief. He hoped all the questions would be like this – things Gavin could have told Sebastian easily if he'd asked. Things Kurt actually didn't mind giving away about himself.

"A village in the hills north of here," he answered firmly.

"The village of . . ."

"Pluna."

"And what did you do in the village of Pluna?"

This was harder. It went against every instinct Kurt had to reveal anything personal to Sebastian or anyone else. He flirted with the idea of lying, but he'd already won concessions from Sebastian and if he saw through Kurt's lie who knew what he'd do? "I was a tailor," he finally said, and something twisted in his gut at saying it out loud while standing naked and enslaved.

"You don't look old enough to be a village craftmaster," Sebastian said.

"I was a journeyman. I'd just finished my apprenticeship when I was taken."

Sebastian ran his eyes around the little room. "Not quite the journey you expected, I imagine. And how did you end up here?"

"I don't know."

The damned eyebrow twisted upward again.

"I don't!" Kurt insisted. "I went to sleep in my own bed and woke up in a cell in the dungeon under this castle. I have no idea who did it, or why. I swear."

That wasn't strictly true. Master Neric's son Cale had always hated Kurt, and worried that his father would eventually leave the shop to him, even though Cale had never for a second had any interest in tailoring. And Kurt's capture had followed almost immediately on the heels of the stroke that had left the master unresponsive, probably dying. He would never know for sure, but he would always suspect.

"I'm not sure I completely believe that," Sebastian said.

It was getting unnerving, the way Sebastian seemed to see through him so easily. Kurt couldn't help squirming a little under the piercing gaze, but he kept silent and eventually Sebastian uncrossed his legs and leaned forward to take a new tack.

"How long has it been since the last time he let you erupt?

Kurt was still on the last question and it took him a moment to realize that Sebastian meant Gavin and not Cale. He groaned inwardly before saying again, "I don't know."

"You don't remember your last orgasm?"

"I didn't say that. You asked how long it's been. I don't know. I don't care."

Sebastian tilted the chair up onto its back legs and rocked there, watching Kurt, and Kurt prayed that he didn't want to follow that line of questioning any further because his last orgasm had been with the dog and there was no threat on earth that could make him tell Sebastian about the dog.

"Why don't you just take care of yourself? You're alone here at night. Who would know?"

Kurt glared at Sebastian. Did he honestly think Kurt hadn't considered all the possibilities? That when he lay awake at night with need burning in his gut and throbbing down his length, he didn't fantasize about the pure ecstasy and sublime relief that was so close – right there in his own hand? Did he think Kurt was so stupid that the idea of masturbating just hadn't occurred to him?

"He'd know," he said finally.

"How?"

"Oh come on. You look like someone with enough experience with his own hand to know that there's usually a mess. Unless you're doing it wrong."

Sebastian didn't even rise to the bait. He tipped his head on that long neck in the direction of the washing alcove. "There's a drain in the floor. Rinse it right down. No evidence."

Kurt focused on the legs of the tipped-back chair, willed them to slip and dump Sebastian's ass onto the floor. Crack that smug skull against the hard stone. "It's not worth the risk," he said without looking up.

"What are you risking?"

"Punishment." He met Sebastian's eyes then, but he wasn't sure whether it was to assert his confidence or to let Sebastian see just how much he didn't want to go down this road. He couldn't say it out loud, couldn't put it into words. Not the dog. And not the spiked cock cage that Gavin used to punish his dick if it didn't cooperate when Gavin wanted it hard. Definitely not the way the punishments made him cry and beg no matter how hard he tried to be strong. If he gave voice to that, he would be lost.

Sebastian held his gaze for a long time before finally saying, "And there's no one to - come looking for you? To get you out of here?"

Kurt lowered his eyes again to the legs of the chair, fighting to control the tears that Sebastian always managed to inspire. "No one," he said, as flatly as he could.

"Parents?"

"Dead." He had to force the word out.

"Brothers and sisters?"

He raised his eyes to glare at Sebastian. "I already said no one."

"That master tailor you served?" Sebastian went on, undaunted.

"He had a stroke. He was on his deathbed when I was - taken." He tried so hard to keep emotion out of his voice, but it cracked the tiniest bit on the last word.

For a moment, Sebastian said nothing. He settled the front legs of the chair back on the floor and stood up, came closer, studying Kurt, as he'd done before, like he was a puzzle waiting to be pieced together. Kurt tensed, afraid that the caressing was going to start again, afraid of the part of him that longed for it. But Sebastian only stood, so close, so still, eyes deep and unnaturally dark in the firelight. Kurt wished he could see their color. It might be less frightening if he could see their color.

"What's your name?" Sebastian asked, barely louder than a whisper.

Kurt stared up at Sebastian and disgust twisted his gut at the thought but there was only one answer he would ever give, standing here, naked, to that question.

"Slut," he said tonelessly.

Sebastian's eyes narrowed. "I mean it. I want to know your name. Your real name."

"It's slut," Kurt insisted, louder this time, more certain.

As much as he hated saying it, Kurt at least finally got the satisfaction of seeing frustration break through Sebastian's superior confidence. He looked confused, like he couldn't understand why Kurt would say such a thing.

"This isn't a trick," Sebastian said. "I'm not trying to trap you or get you in trouble. I just want to know your name. I'd rather not have to think of you as Gavin's slut."

He was telling the truth, Kurt could see that much. That's what all the questions were about. Sebastian was trying to humanize him, by giving him a place and a life and a name. He wanted to see the person inside the slut. And instinct told Kurt that this was the thing he had to guard against most of all, the most dangerous attack yet.

"Why?" Kurt asked, trying to sound just as sincere as Sebastian. "It's what I am, isn't it? It's the whole point of this whole stupid game. You want to come in here and look at me and touch me and make me . . . suck your dick. What does that make me if not a slut? You may not want to admit it but _slut_ is exactly what you want me to be. Have the balls to tell the truth about what you want from me!"

Sebastian's hands moved lightning-fast, grabbing Kurt by the shoulders – not quite hard enough to hurt but leaving no doubt that Kurt's accusation had completely broken through the smug façade.

"You have no idea what I want from you," Sebastian hissed, his face so close to Kurt's that they were almost touching.

"Then tell me. Just tell me so I can give it to you and this can be over!"

Kurt was panting, he had never, never let himself show this much emotion and he knew it had to be a mistake but Sebastian was pushing him in all the wrong ways and it felt so, so good to finally stand his ground and say what he'd been thinking for so long. It made him want to sing with the strength of it, especially when Sebastian abruptly let him go and stepped back out of Kurt's space, the anger draining from his face, replaced by that focused intensity that made Kurt feel like a bug under glass.

"You want to know what I want from you? That's easy. Submission."

Kurt laughed out loud. He didn't mean to, but the idea was so ridiculous that he couldn't help it. The sharp sound of it reverberated in the room.

"That's funny?" Sebastian asked.

"I'm standing here naked. I have to do whatever you say or I'll be punished. That's not submissive enough for you?"

"That's not submissive at all."

Sebastian's control was coming back faster than Kurt's. His smirk was firmly back in place, whereas Kurt could only gape in disbelief.

"You comply. You obey. But I'm willing to bet you've never submitted. Not to Gavin." He practically spat the name.

Kurt forced his mouth closed as he watched Sebastian watch him.

"You could, though. I saw you on that dais with that stupid woman and I could tell you hated every second of it but even so, the way you knelt there, with so much –" he paused, searching for the right word, "– dignity."

The word struck at note in Kurt, a dark minor chord of familiarity. Sebastian looked right at him and Kurt wanted to hide from what he saw in the dark eyes. Sebastian was calmer, more in control, but the cocky display of confidence was gone. What he was saying _mattered_ to him, for some reason that Kurt couldn't understand. Kurt had learned very painfully to be afraid of things he couldn't understand.

"Dignity," Sebastian said it again and again Kurt felt the frisson through his body, "and strength. And I thought, if he actually _chose_ to submit, he would be irresistible."

"Why would I ever do that?" Kurt asked, his voice trembling beyond his ability to control it. Sebastian's eyes held him captive. He wanted to look away but he couldn't.

"Why wouldn't you?" Sebastian stepped closer again, tiny smile back in place, challenging Kurt. "Don't tell me you've never thought about it. Giving yourself to someone like that. Being whatever he wants you to be just so you can hear him tell you how perfect you are." He threw out the _he_ so easily, like he didn't even need to bother to ask, like Kurt's entire inner life was transparent to him. "I think you've dreamed about it. Giving up control and letting yourself be taken. I think you've craved it."

Kurt couldn't barely breathe through the fear that was chilling his heart and the heat that was filling his belly. _Fuck you. _He summoned it up like a shield but even that couldn't protect him from Sebastian's eyes and words.

Because he had thought about it. Ever since the day, when he was only fourteen, that he'd come across the miller's apprentice in the forest, cutting dead trees for firewood, shirtless, young, lithe muscles rippling in the dappled sunlight, and he'd hidden and he'd watched and he'd imagined . . .

"I think you've thought about kneeling for someone, begging to be allowed to touch, to serve –"

Kurt had to stop him, he didn't know how Sebastian managed to reach into his head and pull out his deepest secrets but he had to shut him up or the Render knew what would become of him. For six months he hadn't dared to think about it, the creeping accusation in his own head, that his slavery was some kind of punishment for his desires. Or some twisted fulfillment of his darkest fantasies. That he deserved it for being what he was. He fell to his knees right there on the stone and pulled frantically at the laces of Sebastian's breeches. He needed to make it stop and this was the only way he knew how.

Shocked off balance by Kurt's onrush, Sebastian stumbled backward and tripped, falling right into the chair behind him. Kurt followed on his knees, still clawing at the strings of his underclothes, tearing them away to reveal a half-hard cock. He fell on it, sucked it down to the root, and Sebastian gasped as it began to fill in Kurt's mouth, stretching down his throat. Like before, Kurt sucked hard, as hard and deep and fast as he could, dragging Sebastian along for the ride, pushing away the images in his head.

_Leaves and twigs poking his bare knees, the boy's perfect cock smooth and hot in his mouth . . ._

Sebastian's hands wrapped around the seat of the chair; Kurt could see the white standing out around his knuckles.

_The boy's broken voice above him, "Gods, yes, Kurt, fuck you're so perfect. So fucking good for me . . ."_

He counted as he sucked, tried anything he could think of to banish the fantasy, so familiar, that had brought him to so many bone-shaking adolescent climaxes.

_Laid out on the forest floor, his cock aching for release, the boy's hands teasing up his thighs, over his belly, around his nipples . . ._

Above him Sebastian moaned freely, rocking deep into Kurt's mouth each time he sank down.

_"Just a little bit longer, sweetheart. Just a few more and I'll let you come, I promise. It's going to be so good . . ."_

Come flooded his mouth, bitter and dark, as Sebastian surrendered to the heat of his throat and climaxed with a rough, uncontrolled groan. Kurt swallowed automatically and pushed away, leaving the last spurts to dribble over the head of Sebastian's cock. He stayed on his knees, gasping, trying to sort out the fragments of fantasy and reality that had tangled up in his head. His body burned but his cock was soft and cold. Nothing fit together as it should. Above him Sebastian gasped as well, short, sharp breaths that rumbled in his chest. Kurt stared at the floor, silently begging Sebastian to leave him alone with his mortification.

But Sebastian stayed put and his breath began to even out, to quiet, to slow. And Kurt's, as if partnered to it, followed suit until the room was still again, with no rushing desperation disturbing the shadows in the corners.

"Stand up." Sebastian said it gently, more like a suggestion than an order, and Kurt, because he couldn't think of any reason not to, because he wanted Sebastian to please just leave him alone, obeyed.

"Turn around."

He obeyed again, moving to face his bed, with the rope hanging from the ceiling above it.

He heard Sebastian rise, heard the rustling of clothing being resettled and laced, and the click of boots on stone as Sebastian closed the distance between them until his long form was pressing against Kurt's naked back and ass. One hand slid around his waist, another around his chest, slowly, carefully, as if Kurt was a wild animal on the edge of panic. They rested strong against his skin, holding Kurt so gently, too gently. It was almost physically painful to stand straight and stiff and not sink back into the offered embrace.

Sebastian's lips brushed his ear as he murmured, "I'll make a deal with you. Tomorrow night, stay away from the cold water."

"Why would I do that?" Kurt hated his voice, his body, for shaking so badly.

"Because what I want to do, what I really want to do," Sebastian was whispering now, close and secret in Kurt's ear, "is lay you out on that bed and make you feel things you have never felt before."

Kurt's head tilted sideways without his permission, pressing his cheek to Sebastian's temple.

"I want to touch you and taste you and hear you moan and I want to make you come harder than you've ever come before. So hard that it won't even matter what your name is because you won't be able to remember it anymore."

Kurt shuddered against Sebastian; the hunger in his belly and the numbness in his cock and the anger in his brain muddling up until he couldn't remember what he wanted or didn't want.

"I'm not allowed to come," he whispered back.

"I think you should let me worry about that. Let me worry about everything. All you have to do is make a choice. Water or no water."

"And if I . . . choose the water?"

"Then that's your choice. I'm not here to punish you. You can have it or not. You decide."

A heat that could only be Sebastian's tongue flicked at Kurt's earlobe, then traced a dizzying line around the outside of his ear, then the hands loosened and slipped away.

Kurt managed to stop himself from grasping at them as they left him. He managed to stay perfectly still as the boot heels clicked on the stones and the door opened and closed. But once Sebastian was gone he slid his own arms around his belly and chest, capturing, keeping the feeling of the embrace, and hating himself for doing it.


	6. Chapter Six

Kurt didn't choose the water.

To his credit, he tried very hard to choose the water. He woke tired from restless dreams in which the miller's muscle-bound apprentice wearing Sebastian's smirking lips and dark, colorless eyes kept telling him _don't look down it's much scarier if you look down_. But Kurt couldn't understand because he was quite sure he was already _down_, laid out on the forest floor with runners from the ailanthus trees binding his arms and legs. But Sebastian kept insisting, while tracing a map of burning trails over Kurt's skin with his long-fingered hands, attached to the apprentice's beefy forearms.

He woke to another quiet morning – the new servant having again deposited breakfast without rousing him – panting and hard and swearing that nothing would make him succumb to Sebastian's temptation. Today would end exactly as yesterday had: with Kurt's dick cold and soft and Sebastian's will subverted once again.

He held onto his resolve through the morning in Gavin's chambers, where the duke's recovery appeared complete and life resumed its normal routine. Kurt was summoned to the bedchamber to present himself for edging, which Reginald accomplished with even more than his usual enthusiasm while Gavin watched from his bed, nibbling delicate fruits from a crystal dish. Kurt pushed his performance further than normal, just to be safe, but without the whiskey Gavin must have lost his taste for torment as he called a halt at first slick, just as he usually did. Then he beckoned Kurt up onto the wide, soft bed for a leisurely blow job, still popping choice tidbits into his mouth while Kurt worked his cock.

Kurt hated blowing Gavin in the bed. It made his legs ache to hold himself prostrate enough to get his mouth all the way down Gavin's cock while carefully keeping his own dick away from the mattress. He couldn't imagine what the punishment would be for leaking on Gavin's perfectly white sheets. He seemed to have miraculously gotten away with staining Gavin's armchair; there was no way he was going to risk smearing the bed.

But much as he hated it, at least the morning routine was a distraction. When it was over Kurt took up his usual place in the corner by the fire, his cock still hard and damp at the tip, determined that nothing would shake his resolve. But the hours wore on him, slowly, like water reshaping stone. Hours in which Sebastian's voice whispered to him – _taste you, touch you, so hard it won't even matter what your name is, let me worry_ – and Kurt's body responded with enthusiasm, no matter how firmly he told it that there would be no tasting or touching or any kind of coming. Hours filled with images from his adolescent fantasies and from last night's strange dreams. In which he felt Sebastian's arms around him again and Sebastian's tongue teasing the tip of his ear. Hours in which the yearning for connection, to touch, to feel himself fully inhabiting his own body for once, making his own choices, crept up and around him, making him feel dizzy with a need that was so much more than physical.

What could it hurt, his traitorous brain argued as the clock ticked ever louder in the corner, to give in? To take? To use Sebastian as Sebastian was using him? To let go, just for an hour, of the endless fight for self-control that filled his every waking moment. To rest. To let someone else take control. Kurt knelt by the fire and visualized stitches and told himself over and over again that he was absolutely going to choose the water.

By mid-morning he was longing for a distraction, anything, even another humiliating display in the great hall. At least that would fire his anger and remind him why it was so important to resist. But the only distraction the day provided was Sebastian, arriving for more accounting with his now-familiar knock on the outer door and his voice greeting Reginald pitched for the first time loud enough to carry to Kurt's ears in the sitting room.

And then there was the trembling.

It was barely noticeable at first, a tiny, deep thrumming that accompanied Sebastian's arrival in the suite. Kurt ignored it. His mind was made up. He was using the water. It didn't matter how badly he wanted to come, how deeply his body craved rest and relief, how much his brain argued that it was only for a few days, then Sebastian would be gone and no harm done. If he let go, how would he ever be able to pull himself back under control? If he let Sebastian take away his pain and need and loneliness, even for a moment, even if it was only an illusion, how could he ever resign himself to his bleak and terrifying life again? And if he _submitted_ – the thought was quiet as a whisper inside his head – how would he ever bring himself to resist again? No. The water was the only choice he could make.

Yet still he trembled like the first morning he'd walked into Master Neric's shop; like the afternoon he'd watched the miller's apprentice chop wood in the forest and completely understood who he was for the very first time.

But Kurt was not going to allow his body's reaction to weaken his resolve. He ignored the trembling, the way his heartbeat picked up when Sebastian's voice again drifted to his ears at the end of the day. He welcomed the press of Gavin's cock in the back of his throat as the duke face-fucked him that night, and the humiliation of presenting himself yet again to be edged, acting out desire while his body betrayed him. They focused his anger, reminded him of how much he was risking if he chose Sebastian's way. And so when he left Gavin's rooms for the night he made a beeline for the spring room.

Almost.

After all, he hated walking the halls hard, so it only made sense to detour into an alcove and wait for his cock to wilt back to reasonable state. And if he didn't exactly rush down the stairs, well, he wasn't _not_ rushing either. He had to take his time coming back with the water because his hands were still trembling, anticipating (nothing, there was nothing to anticipate) and he didn't want to risk creating a sloshing mess for some poor servant to have to clean up. There was a very good reason for every delay.

The stab of disappointment he felt when he returned to his room and found no Sebastian waiting to take the choice out of his hands was harder to explain away.

Kurt let himself in, set the buckets down by the fire, and reached his trembling hands towards its warmth. His cock was already perking up again at the thought of what was coming. Still, Kurt poured water from one of the buckets into the old basin; he crouched over it, wrapping his hands around the iron bars of his bedstead, but this time his balls didn't even bother to flinch. They'd known all along what his brain was only starting to admit. He'd never meant to choose the water.

Kurt's hands tightened on the iron and tears filled his eyes because fuck Sebastian. Just fuck him for knowing, _again_, what was going on in Kurt's head. For waiting and forcing Kurt to make his own choice and accept all the risks that came with it. Fuck him for existing in the first place with his hands and his tongue and his whispered temptations. And fuck him because the only emotion Kurt felt more strongly than his anger was overwhelming, shuddering excitement.

He pulled himself up onto his feet, slid the basin out of the way, and turned up the lamp as bright as it would go. He stared for a moment at his bed; his hands shook even harder and his heart fluttered in his throat as he carefully folded the blanket back on itself until it was just a strip of fabric at the bottom of the mattress. Then he turned back to stand facing the door. He clasped his hands behind his back - to hide their trembling, he told himself, but he'd been too long a slave to be unaware of the significance of the position. His cock expressed its approval by thickening, lengthening, and with timing so impeccable that Kurt couldn't hold back a bitter laugh, the moment it bumped hard against his belly Sebastian's knock broke the stillness.

The door creaked open and Sebastian slipped quickly into the room, shoving it closed behind him, but when he turned and took his first look at Kurt he froze, back against the door. For the smallest moment – so small that Kurt afterward was sure it must have been some trick of the light – a strange expression came over the pointed, smug features. For only an instant, as he registered Kurt's careful stance and his proud, upright, decidedly not flaccid cock, Sebastian looked – _young_. So very young and the strangest combination of frightened and determined, like a man at a mark facing his executioner.

But then the fire crackled, drawing Kurt's attention, and when he looked back the odd expression was gone and leaning against his door was the familiar, cocky, self-assured Sebastian, smirk firmly in place. Kurt's knees wobbled a little with relief. This was the Sebastian he needed, if he was going to get through whatever it was he'd chosen to do tonight. Sebastian had promised to be strong for both of them and Kurt was going to hold him to that. He had a feeling it was going to take all of his own strength just to keep breathing.

Sebastian didn't speak right away. His eyes swept the room, taking in the buckets and the basin of water abandoned by the fire, the bright lamp, the turned-down bed, before coming back to focus on Kurt himself. "Well, you are endlessly surprising," he said at long last.

"I thought this was what you wanted," Kurt said, cursing himself for sounding so breathless.

"Oh it is. I just . . . didn't think you'd do it."

"You sounded pretty sure last night."

Sebastian smiled. "Well I was sure you _wanted_ it. I just didn't know if you'd be brave enough to admit it."

Kurt lifted his chin and stared straight into Sebastian's mysterious dark eyes. "You don't think it takes courage to live the way I do?"

The smile faded from Sebastian's lips and he pushed away from the door at last, stepping slowly toward Kurt, his boot heels clicking. "I think," he said, coming close and staring right into Kurt in that annoying, arousing way he had, "that it's fucking exhausting. I think it takes every ounce of strength you have. Pretending all the time to be something you're not – but still trying not to forget who you really are . . ."

Having Sebastian, and all that he'd promised, so close sent Kurt's heart tripping hummingbird-fast in his chest. "What would you know about it?" he asked.

"You think you're the only person who's ever had to do that?"

"You?" Kurt asked, incredulous.

Sebastian didn't react at all to his skepticism. The corners of his lips pulled up just enough to hint at a smile, but his eyes - still dark; Kurt felt a twinge of disappointment that even at its brightest the lamp wasn't enough to illuminate their color - were intense. "It's like you're hanging from a rope, over a bottomless pit. Your arms are aching and your hands are bleeding and all you want is to let go but you're so afraid of the fall." One hand moved then and cupped Kurt's jaw, warm, and terrifyingly gentle. "But you can let go now. I'll catch you."

Desire twisted in Kurt's gut. "If he ever found out . . ." he whispered.

"He won't." So sure. So certain. "I promise he won't."

Kurt wanted to ask how Sebastian could make such a promise, and what was going to happen after Sebastian left him, and how he was supposed to make himself numb again after letting in all these sensations. There were a million ways that Sebastian could screw him over, destroy his last shreds of dignity and self-control. Every little thing Sebastian learned about him could be used against him. But letting himself feel, even just a tiny bit, even just the perfection of the path Sebastian's thumb was tracing to the point of Kurt's chin and back again, was like opening a cage and flying out into the open sky. And maybe the danger itself was part of what made Kurt's cock dance between them, reaching out for Sebastian's body. He had imagined, back in Pluna, but his fantasies had always been just that. Never once had he believed that there could be an actual man who would desire him and touch him and look at him the way Sebastian was looking at him at that very moment.

"How do I know I can trust you?" he asked, begging Sebastian with his eyes to give him some magic assurance that would make everything okay.

"You don't. That's what makes it trust. A leap of faith."

Pretty words, Kurt thought. Perfectly chosen to give his body the excuse it needed to let go. And really, he had known where this was going to end up since he stepped away from the basin of water so what was the point in holding out any longer?

"And if I leap? What happens then?" he asked, pleased that his voice sounded stronger and more sure.

Sebastian smirked. "What do you want to happen then?"

Anticipation, fear, want, shame – Kurt couldn't tell the difference between them anymore. He could - he knew he should - stop playing with fire and send Sebastian away. But this was perhaps the only chance he'd ever have to feel the things he'd dreamed of as a boy back in Pluna. He wanted to be touched, and held, and made to feel. And he found, as he stared into Sebastian's seductive gaze, that he wanted it just a little bit more than he feared it.

He lifted his chin and stared unwaveringly into Sebastian's eyes. "I want what you said last night. I want all of it."

Sebastian must have seen the conflict in Kurt's face – of course he did. Sebastian saw everything. He held Kurt's eyes and, if he'd felt any uncertainty when he'd first entered the room there wasn't a shadow of it to be seen now. He was all confidence and control, and standing under his gaze Kurt felt fear and shame begin to cede their places in his chest, making room for more exciting emotions. Sebastian saw the exact moment that it happened; his smile widened and he let his hand fall in a long, slow sweep down Kurt's neck, his chest, his waist, avoiding his jutting cock and coming to rest on one sharp hip bone. That oh-so-annoying eyebrow quirked up knowingly. "Well in that case, tailor from Pluna, you'd better get your ass on that bed."

Sebastian didn't move his hand, and it was harder than it should have been to step away from it, resting so close to where Kurt yearned to be touched. But there were so many things he wanted tonight. He stepped backward, still drawing strength from Sebastian's cocky assurance, until the backs of his knees touched the mattress and he had to turn away to climb on the bed. Settling on his back, giving up the control of his feet on the floor, left him feeling agonizingly vulnerable and so much more exposed than being naked upright. Kurt closed his eyes to try to find some equilibrium. But Sebastian's low, appreciative "Fuuuuck," pulled them open again.

"I can see you're going to make it very hard for me to give you the experience you deserve," Sebastian said, and for the first time that night he openly stared at Kurt's cock, which squirmed against his belly under such intense observation.

Kurt realized that he'd unconsciously spread his legs wide on the bed, displaying himself for Sebastian. His first instinct was to close them again but he could see Sebastian's breath stutter and the tiny crack in his control sent new tendrils of arousal shooting through Kurt's body. "What do you mean?" he asked, and he wasn't trying to be enticing but even he had to admit that his voice, breathy and high, was the definition of provocative.

"I mean that I have a feeling you're going to come as soon as I touch that cock," Sebastian said, and he didn't try not to sound enticing at all, "But all I want to do is devour it."

"I could come more than once," Kurt said, and his cock thrust hopefully upward, apparently happy to be the center of this particular conversation.

Sebastian raised his eyes back to Kurt's and even from the bed Kurt could see them twinkling again. "You think that now. But I also have a feeling that, as long as you've waited, you're going to erupt like the fucking Mhyrrik geyser and then be out cold before you even have time to thank me properly."

Kurt had no idea what the Mhyrrik geyser was but he had a sudden vision of all of this tension and fear resulting in his cock spurting weeks of pent-up release into Sebastian's sputtering face and it was just so _apt_ that an unfamiliar sensation began to bubble in his belly and suddenly he was giggling. Not the wry, bitter laughter that his insane circumstances occasionally forced from him but real, honest mirth. He didn't expect it; he almost didn't recognize it, it had been so long since he'd experienced it. But the sheer absurdity of it all hit Kurt like a blow and he couldn't stop. It was just too unbelievably funny, all this drama and tension over an orgasm. Just a simple eruption, like the thousands he'd given himself, casually, almost without thinking, between puberty and the day he was taken. Here he was laid out and trembling and frightened and it suddenly all seemed so _silly_ that he had to slap a hand over his mouth just to try to keep it in.

Watching him, Sebastian tried hard to hold on to his superior, in-control smirk but he must have seen the hilarity as well because his smile twitched, then cracked, and they were laughing together, Sebastian grinning then bouncing then bent over with the force of it. It lit up his face in a way Kurt had never seen. It made him beautiful – a thing Kurt somehow managed to appreciate even while hugging his own aching gut with tears streaming from his eyes.

Eventually, the laughter ran its course and Kurt and Sebastian were left wiping their eyes and smiling at each other, each panting a little in the aftermath, and for the first time in longer than he could remember Kurt felt _normal_, which should have been strange, lying on the bed naked in front of Sebastian, but something had happened to him, something had been released and in its wake he was just a boy, just _Kurt_, about to be touched for the first time that counted by another boy. A boy with dark eyes and soft, full lips and the most amazing smile when he actually meant it.

"You're probably right," Kurt said, still smiling, and if this was letting his walls down, well, he'd do it and accept the consequences because the way Sebastian was looking at him was straight out of his most fundamental fantasies. "But where does that leave me?" This time the provocative was intentional.

Sebastian's trademark smirk suddenly seemed much less supercilious. "Well lucky for you I'm extremely creative. And it doesn't hurt that you have a body that was made to be worshipped."

And just like that the last traces of humor were gone and Kurt watched with wide eyes and tight breath as Sebastian took the two steps that brought him next to the bed. Every cell in his body seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for that first touch to seal his fate. But when it came it was gentle fingers brushing his wrist, wrapping around and lifting Kurt's arm, directing it up and over his head to the iron frame at the head of the bed.

"I think you may want something to hold onto," Sebastian said lightly, but his eyes burned with a deeper fire.

Slowly and deliberately Kurt raised his other arm to meet the first overhead, wrapping both around the same iron spindle.

It set something loose in him, putting his hands there, the look on Sebastian's face when he did it. If any part of Kurt was still hanging on that rope over the abyss, it let go now and he closed his eyes and let himself fall, and found that the bottom was the soft forest floor and the sensation of imaginary creeping vines binding his wrists and Sebastian's hand stroking down his arm, over his ribs, along his hipbone. Goosebumps prickled his skin in its path and Kurt shivered, earning him a soft chuckle from Sebastian. When the fingers stroked lower, slipping to the inside of Kurt's thigh and brushing his balls butterfly-light, Kurt had to bite his lip to keep himself from crying out at the barely-there intensity of it all.

"Oh, no, that I absolutely can't allow."

Kurt opened his eyes and stared a question at Sebastian.

"We're not out there," Sebastian said, jerking his head in the direction of the door. "This is you and me. No holding back."

"Someone will hear," Kurt protested.

"So what? They already assume I'm torturing you in here. Besides," he finally settled on the bed, dipping the mattress by Kurt's waist, "If you don't make any noise how will I know what to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"How will I know if you like _this_," he leaned forward, slowly, holding Kurt's gaze all the way down until he had to tilt his head away to stroke his soft, hot tongue over the tiny point of Kurt's nipple. Kurt shuddered again; a tickling heat snaked its way from the sensitive flesh under Sebastian's mouth all the way down his body to tease at his cock and coil in his balls. Kurt had never played with his own nipples, before, and no one ever bothered with them now except to hurt him so the liquid pleasure of it took him by surprise. But instinct prevailed and his lips remained sealed.

". . . or if you prefer _this_," Sebastian looked up at Kurt to speak then dropped his head again and without warning sealed his mouth over the nipple and sucked, hard. Unexpected pleasure spiced with just the right amount of pain surged through Kurt's body from head to toe and instinct was abandoned with one desperate cry. Kurt's hands tightened around the bed frame and his chest arched up off the mattress but Sebastian just kept sucking, rolling his tongue around the nipple until the building heat left Kurt whimpering freely and jerking his hips in an unconscious plea for attention.

He didn't even realize Sebastian's mouth had disappeared until he heard laughter again. "Well that answers that question," Sebastian said, and this time Kurt, whose body felt like one big oozing pile of _yes, _couldn't even bring himself to feel annoyed at the smug tone of voice. "And for the record, nothing's hotter than a boy who likes a little pain with his pleasure. Don't think I won't remember that."

It sounded so much more like a promise than a threat and Kurt moaned, but that was probably because Sebastian's thumb had taken his mouth's place and was now stroking little circles over his sensitized nipple that were wreaking havoc on his nerve endings, and not at all because the idea of Sebastian oh-so-gently hurting him made dark, primal music thrum in Kurt's belly.

Sebastian watched him, still teasing Kurt's nipple, waiting as his thrusting hips settled back on the bed, as his breath deepened and his body began to relax, the tension of weeks melting out of his muscles, softening under the slow caress. Kurt's jaw loosened, his lips parted and his eyes closed, which seemed to be the signal Sebastian was waiting for.

"That's it," he murmured, "perfect. Just feel. I'll do the rest. I think you've waited long enough, don't you?"

"Gods, yes," Kurt breathed, as Sebastian's hand slid down his torso and finally, finally brushed the head of his cock, skimmed down the shaft, cupped his balls. The need to push into the relief of sensation was strong but Kurt held himself still; he wanted to do what Sebastian had told him to do. Just feel. He never wanted to stop feeling. His entire world was shrinking down, down to just Sebastian's warm hand wrapped ever so gently around his swollen balls. He wanted it to move, so badly, he wanted more of everything, but Sebastian simply held him so he gripped the iron bar over his head and fought the urge to thrust. Instead he forced himself to slow his breathing down, counting each inhale and exhale.

"Yes. Beautiful." Sebastian rewarded Kurt for what felt like superhuman restraint by destroying his careful breath control with one gentle press of his fingers, rolling Kurt's balls against each other in an excruciating dance of pure sensation. Pleasure ran in rivulets down his legs and up his cock, until staying still became impossible and staying quiet, ludicrous. Sebastian had praised his restraint but didn't seem to mind the lack of it either; he kept up his sensuous assault until Kurt was moaning with abandon and rutting frantically into nothing. Slick leaked from his cock in tiny pulses and teased over the throbbing head before falling to pool on his belly. With one long, humming release of breath Kurt surrendered completely to Sebastian's control. He was helplessly turned on and high on sensation and he loved everything about it.

But just when he was sure that he could come just from Sebastian's careful manipulation of his sac, the warm hand stilled, then moved away altogether, to rest on Kurt's thigh. Which might as well have been a universe away.

"Don't get too excited," Sebastian said, and Kurt was sure he could hear a tremble behind the confident voice. "I'm just getting started."

Kurt didn't know whether to be thrilled or distressed by this revelation. His body tried to do both at once, which left him dizzy on top of breathless and desperate with need. Under him the thin mattress bounced and shifted again; Sebastian was climbing onto the bed, moving Kurt's legs to kneel between them.

"Please tell me you took your boots off," Kurt panted. He wasn't so far gone that he'd abandoned all his standards.

"If that's what you're worried about right now I need to be working a lot harder," Sebastian said. The mattress moved again and Kurt felt a wet heat – Sebastian's tongue – trail along the inside crease of his hip, sliding lower and lower until it touched the tight skin of his scrotum and began to lick in long, perfect stripes. Kurt all but thrashed under the gentle teasing, the sensation so different from the one Sebastian's hand had created. That had been like being milked from the inside, his balls rubbing against one another until the come was primed and ready to flow. This, though, was a completely different brand of torture, so close to the place he really wanted Sebastian's tongue, but still just a tease. His hips rocked down, straining to bring his cock closer to that evil, delicious mouth, but then once again the sensation stopped.

"On the floor."

"Wha . . ." Kurt forced his eyes open and tried to understand what Sebastian had said.

"My boots. They're on the floor. I didn't want you to worry." His lips, red and swollen from the work he'd been doing – and it made Kurt's head spin to realize it – twisted as he tried to hold back a smile.

"You're diabolical," Kurt tried to sound reproving.

"Diabolical! I like it. Bend your legs."

"What? Why?"

"Just bend them," Sebastian said, lifting Kurt's knees until his feet lay flat on the bed. "If I'm going to be called diabolical I might as well live up to it."

Kurt wanted to wail with frustration. "I take it back. You're not diabolical. Just please . . ."

"Too late, little tailor." Sebastian bent to Kurt's crotch once again.

Any further protest was cut off by the press of Sebastian's tongue at the very base of Kurt's scrotum, and then lower, firm now, rocking against him in a way that sent a whole new set of sparks shooting through Kurt's body. Sebastian licked and sucked at the delicate skin until Kurt was writhing again, tiny whimpering animal noises filling the air around them, and then Sebastian slid lower still . . .

"Oh gods, no . . ." Kurt groaned.

Sebastian's tongue was gone and Kurt raised his head with a desperate cry because he hadn't meant _no_, he'd just meant . . .

"No?" Sebastian asked. His lips were shiny and wet and try as he might Kurt, facing them, couldn't quite put his brain together.

"It's just that . . . you shouldn't . . . I mean, it's not really . . ." he babbled, torn between the thing that he wanted more than anything and the fact that he'd felt such shame, whenever he'd touched himself _there_, as a boy.

"Stop." It was quiet but commanding in a way that immediately drew Kurt's focus back to dark eyes looking up with such heat from between his legs. "If you really mean no, then I won't," Sebastian said. "But if you're worried about me, well I have it on good authority that you are probably the cleanest person in this entire castle. I'm sure that applies here," he touched a fingertip ever so lightly right there, on the pucker of Kurt's hole, and Kurt's brain went fuzzy again, "as much as anywhere else. So don't say no because you think it's dirty or shameful because that's bullshit." His eyes burned and for the millionth time Kurt wished he could tell what color they were. "It's _amazing_. And I really, really want to hear what kind of noises you'll make when I do it."

The challenge was back in Sebastian's face, and the confident command that pinned Kurt down and demanded honesty.

He couldn't have said whether he made any noises at all.

The moment Sebastian's tongue touched his asshole every bone in Kurt's body liquefied, and every thought fled his head. He was sure he no longer existed in corporeal form at all, he had been transformed into pure, exquisite, pealing sensation, his grip on the bed frame the only thing tethering him to the physical realm. There was need, gods yes, his need built beyond the limits of endurance as Sebastian licked and sucked and – _oh Maker_– pressed the point of his tongue just inside the tight ring of muscles, but as profoundly as Kurt longed to bring all the weeks of aching pain and burning desire to a head, he just as much wanted this to go on forever. To hold this moment for an infinite space, live in it, float in the river of pleasure that Sebastian was creating all around him. It was intimate and singular and, yes, dirty in a way that seemed like perfection and Kurt felt tears fill his eyes because he had never, ever imagined than anything could feel like this. His balls were clenching in rhythmic throbs and his cock streamed slick; his skin felt too tight and at the same time impossibly loose. And then just as the burning began to gather in the crown of his cock, sharp and excruciating and so, so close, Sebastian lifted his head again and Kurt came back to his body just in time to hear his own despairing cry and see those dark eyes catch his own.

Sebastian was breathless, panting gently and looking at Kurt as if he was the most beautiful creature who had ever existed. "Didn't I tell you it was amazing?" he asked.

"Please . . . gods, please make me come. I can't . . . I have to, please . . ." Kurt begged unashamedly now and without another word Sebastian lowered his head again and licked pure fire around the crown of Kurt's cock, flicked with devastating care into the slit, then sucked hard, hard enough to pull Kurt's surging cock deeper and deeper into the enveloping heat of his perfect mouth and when he felt the muscles of Sebastian's throat flutter around him it was finally, mercifully, unendurably too much. Before he could even shout a warning he was coming, burning brighter than the sun, brighter than a thousand suns, pulsing and pumping and crying out the end of weeks and weeks of torment and frustration. There was nothing else in the world but heat and ecstasy and Sebastian's throat as he came just exactly like the fucking Mhyrrik geyser - how had that ever seemed funny? - until he couldn't see or hear or even breathe. He had no idea how long it lasted, centuries, aeons passed before slowly, bit by bit from the ends of his fingers and toes moving in toward his core the orgasmic pleasure was replaced by another sensation, one just as necessary and just as rare and unfamiliar. _Relief._ Pure and perfect, like freedom, it banished all the tension and fear of the months past and left him empty. Clean. Radiant.

He felt his cock released to flop, blessedly spent, against his thigh. Already lethargy was overtaking him, he couldn't have moved if he'd tried, but he forced his eyes open when he felt the motion of Sebastian climbing off the bed.

"You were right," he said, whispering, because he didn't have the strength for more.

Sebastian was smiling down at him like he was wonderful. "About?" he asked.

"I'm going to pass out now."

"What can I say? When I do a job, I do it right," Sebastian teased. "Pass out. You deserve it."

Kurt's eyes drifted closed again, but he heard Sebastian moving and then felt a blanket settle over his body. Fingers touched his wrists where he still clutched at the bed frame, and his hands were guided down alongside his body and tucked under the blanket. The last person to tuck him in, he thought languidly, had been his father.

Then another crucial thought occurred to him. "You didn't . . . I didn't get to . . ."

"It's okay," Sebastian said. "I can take care of myself tonight."

A hand, or maybe lips, brushed Kurt's temple. He tried to turn his head, in case they were lips; in case he might have earned a kiss, but instead he got a whisper in his ear.

"Go to sleep, tailor from Pluna. You need your rest. I have big plans for you tomorrow."

"Kurt," Kurt said, without opening his eyes, and his own name felt strange on his tongue after so long.

"What?"

"My name. It's Kurt. You didn't make me forget it."

There was silence, for so long that he managed to push his eyes open again just in case he'd somehow missed Sebastian leaving. Instead he found the full lips and intent eyes still hovering so close to his own.

"Kurt," Sebastian said, and if it had sounded strange on Kurt's tongue, it sounded beautiful on Sebastian's. "Well, I guess that gives me something to shoot for next time, doesn't it?"

"A challenge." Kurt tried to smile, but he wasn't sure he managed it. Everything was so heavy and muffled and he was losing the battle to keep his eyes open.

"Go to sleep, Kurt," Sebastian said.

It was a command that Kurt was more than willing to obey. He didn't even hear Sebastian close the door.


End file.
